Picky: Izola Ware Curry
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Picky:Izola Ware Curry*
In the endTarzan always get hold of Jane& what I'm tryin' to figureIs how he swingOn them vines & knowWhich of them galsCan hold him steady& not take him outOn the wrong limbHow he land so soft likeNot a speck of sweat on his fleshLike them peaches where I come fromYou got to be careful which oneYou bite into even if itLook like it sweet as caneCould be a worm or worse insideGrinnin' at you like youThe unexpected guest soWhen I went to the picture showTo get out the house & stopped byThe store to hunt for some workOr a smile or two & I saw thisBoy & his mob callin' him a kingArthur Lucer I thinkWhich sound like Lucifer to me& when I got up close enoughTo look him in his eyesHe looked at me like I was commonAs all the rest he got hold of, like [End Page 1006] He sho' did seem to know too muchAbout where I been & talkAbout a freedom he knewI ain't never gonna seeSo right then I knew it was himOr me gonna take a stabAt livin' another day &Just this one timeI chose me [End Page 1007]
Footnotes
* On September 20, 1958, Curry, a forty-two year-old, unemployed domestic, stabbed Martin Luther King, Jr. in his chest with a letter opener at Blumstein's department store in Harlem, where King was signing his new book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. Doctors say if he'd sneezed before the opener was removed, it would have punctured his aorta, almost assuredly killing him. Curry was diagnosed schizophrenic and sent to Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
