A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop

By Thomas Sayers Ellis

All those

Liquid love affairs,

Blind swimmers

Trusting rumps.

We wiggled,

Imagining water.

Wet, where was

The One?

Nevermind Atlantis

And the promise

Of moving pictures,

A lit candle

In the window

Of our conscious minds.

Those who danced,

Pretending to swim

Underwater,

Did so out

Of pure allegiance.

Some wore snorkels

Made with

The waistbands

Of funky underwear,

Others wet suits

With clothespins

Clamped to their noses,

Airtight as

Black Power handshakes.

Rump-by-rump,

The strings attached

To our thangs were

Reeled into The Deep

And rhythmic as fins,

Schools of P signs

Flapped and waved

Like flags.

One nation

Under a groove.

No one held their breath

In the flashlit depth.

No one sank.

Source: The Maverick Room (Graywolf Press, 2005)

Biography

Thomas Sayers Ellis is the author of The Maverick Room (Graywolf, 2005) and a chaplet, Song On (WinteRed Press, 2005) and his interview with Bootsy Collins appears in Waxpoetics #18. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Lesley University low-residency Creative Writing Program.

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