The Dance of the Do-Wrong People

Joe-Boy goes to Mahogany Hall.
He sees Lulu with the red-flame wig
& diamonds on every finger.

Moonlight slips through louvered blinds,
a double shadow on the wall
like Lulu's octoroon décolleté.

Joe-Boy won't tell her
he picked cotton
for the plantation penitentiary.
Before that,
he spread the flesh plague.

You're the strangest man
I ever knew, she says.

Three Tabasco drops
in every tequila shot,
Joe-Boy dances the Grizzly Bear.
He stomps out blues
like cigarettes on that floor.

What makes you think
you know me?

I'll keep you from going blind,
Joe-Boy. I'll keep you.

I heard better, he says,
but you sing just
like you pay the bills with it.

I say yes to everything,
she says,
your skin-sin & shit-words.

I want you, Lulu.
Be my taxi dancer,
my yellow-song girl.
Be my first-night virgin.

Yes, you be less
than a buck, she says.
You be my five-
&-dime man.