Join The Dillydoun Review in celebrating National Poetry Month with

A Poem by Maryann Lawrence

(she says)
Ah, but love you’ve forgotten the cool nights on the hot streets
when Nightingale Rose kept us rapt with her cooing,
and Bella Jo drivin’ us all to pieces with her red satin
swishing on the dance floor

’til there wasn’t room for no one but you and her
lighting up the room and your feet moving near as fast
as my heartbeat.

But then you saw me standing with Bluesy and
you asked me to dance, but Farm Boy Willy threw down his straw hat
and grabbed my arm before I could say yes.

You’ve forgotten the old Captain, too,
when he called on you to help him when his bed catched fire
and you came with ten buckets on your head.

He lost all his best Sunday clothes and you let him have half yours
and your best pair of shoes, too. But Minnie she just complained
they didn’t fit right knowing
she didn’t have no clothes half as good
fearing he would leave her for
a woman in satin.

Man, you forget your people who never lost faith in you
and singing your praises like a Hallelujah when Darvin Red
accused you of cheating at pool that Friday
when we all went down to Jay’s ‘cuz the streets was too hot
and you cooled him off with a tenner and never looked back.

Them was sour times, and sweet, too,
and both mixed up with each other
and there is no one knows you like me
and I says they got you all wrong
and I’ll stand here ‘til the
Nightingale sings through my bones.

Maryann Lawrence is a sales professional, solopreneur, antique collector and writer in Southeast Michigan. To wit, she makes ends meet. She has been published in Literary Mama, Vine Leaves Press, Light & Dark and Foliate Oak. Read her essays, poems, short stories and children’s lit at MaryannLawrence.net.