Track 5: Summertime: As performed by Janis Joplin
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Track 5: SummertimeAs performed by Janis Joplin
God’s got his eye on me, but I ain’t a sparrow. I’m more like a lawn mower . . . no, a chainsaw, Anything that might mangle each manicured lawn In Port Arthur, a place I wouldn’t return to If the mayor offered me every ounce of oil My daddy cans at the refinery. My voice, I mean, Ain’t sweet. Nothing nice about it. It won’t fly Even with Jesus watching. I don’t believe in Jesus. The Baxter boys climbed a tree just to throw Persimmons at me. The good and perfect gifts From above hit like lightning, leave bruises. So I lied—I believe, but I don’t think God Likes me. The girls in the locker room slapped Dirty pads across my face. They called me Bitch, but I never bit back. I ain’t a dog. Chainsaw, I say. My voice hacks at you. I bet I tear my throat. I try so hard to sound jagged. I get high and say one thing so many times Like Willie Baker who worked across the street— Repeated, Please. School out, summertime And the living lashed, Mama said I should be Thankful, that the town’s worse to coloreds Than they are to me, that I’d grow out of my acne. God must love Willie Baker—all that leather and still A please that sounds like music. See. I wouldn’t know a sparrow from a mockingbird. The band plays. I just belt out, Please. This tune Ain’t half the blues. I should be thankful. I get high and moan like a lawn mower So nobody notices I’m such an ugly girl. I’m such an ugly girl. I try to sing like a man Boys call, boy. I turn my face to God. I pray. I wish I could pour oil on everything green in Port Arthur. [End Page 72]
Jericho Brown recently received the Ph. D. in creative writing and literature from the University of Houston, where he served as the poetry editor of Gulf Coast. Please, his first book of poems, was published by Western Michigan University Press in 2008. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and Callaloo. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of San Diego.
