I Be’s An Act of Grammar in Black Literature

I Be’s An Act of Grammar in Black Literature

             (for Patricia Smith)

by Ed Roberson

Ask for your taste    your tongue   about to get

a workout              long unaroused areas

of your language   be hot to salivate

over old tenses anew       doctor do-ing the who

upside    up and down yo head   such that that tense

be’s you       don’t know when    it happen in

and where likely all over             and you

there crowned its knowledge knots poked  all out yo head

bespoke spoke

spoken here     and time thrown up its mf-in’ hands said

slammed together into universal          I heard that

said and how

the truth feel be   to come loudly lawdy

hallelujah!like      work!dem    tropic hip be’s it Patricia did it.