tsarina

 

       John Riley

       MERCY

        When I was a boy and self-born in religion my aunts,
        uninterested in being washed
        with the saving blood of Jesus Christ,
        called me Preacher Boy.
        Come Sunday mornings I traveled alone
        in a white shirt, clip on navy-blue tie,
        penny loafers shined the night before,
        down a county dirt road studded with rocks
        that jabbed through the red soil
        like a reef slicing a surf.
        In memory it is always cold fall.
        At the end of my walk I'd wait for the bus
        to the Providence Primitive Baptist Church,
        practice my weekly verses, press
        my wet hair back with a ten-cent black comb.

        I strapped myself to the word of God;
        stood and swayed when hymns were sung;
        wanted death to be a wool glove.
        But the hold of that ancient agony collapsed
        the first time I heard Cannonball Adderley
        and his Sextet play "Mercy Mercy Mercy."
        It was recorded live in '66. Cannonball
        was gone before I heard
        his funk rise from the turntable
        and wash the sea of salvation away.
        All was lost. What could I do?
        ay spun into night!
        I became blind as a fish with scales for eyes.
        That touch of the dark felt right.