In Detroit
1.
Last November, driving to the Watch the Throne concert
in Detroit, I told the girls I’d that morning
seen online that Jay Z and Kanye sometimes play
“In Paris” multiple times, repeatedly, as an encore.
They seemed suspicious, either that that was true,
or that the same song, repeated, wouldn’t just be lame.
When Jay Z and Kanye came back out, after enough cheering:
We’re going to skate to one song, one song only.
The crowd went pretty nuts. We went nuts.
And sure enough, as we were all going gorillas,
the beat stopped, Kanye and Jay Z looked at each other,
looked out at us, and the dj started the beat anew.
‘Again?’
2.
Last November, driving to the Watch the Throne concert
in Detroit, I told the girls I’d that morning
seen online that Jay Z and Kanye sometimes play
“In Paris” multiple times, repeatedly, as an encore.
They seemed suspicious, either that that was true,
or that the same song, repeated, wouldn’t just be lame.
When Jay Z and Kanye came back out for the encore.
When they stopped halfway through “In Paris,”
just as they had us suffering from realness,
and then started over again, from the top,
it felt like we were now watching something special.
Like of course they were playing the same song twice in a row.
Like of course twice in a row really meant three times.
3.
Last November, driving to the Watch the Throne concert
in Detroit, I told the girls I’d that morning
seen online that Jay Z and Kanye sometimes play
“In Paris” multiple times, repeatedly, as an encore.
They seemed suspicious, either that that was true,
or that the same song, repeated, wouldn’t just be lame.
Third time through, Ye didn’t tell us some girl asked him
if they could get married at the mall. He didn’t tell us
that he told her to meet him in the bathroom stall.
He looked at us, and twenty thousand of us told her
To show us why she deserved to have it all.
What she order, fish filet? We told Jay, That shit cray.
4.
Last November, driving to the Watch the Throne concert
in Detroit, I told the girls I’d that morning
seen online that Jay Z and Kanye sometimes play
“In Paris” multiple times, repeatedly, as an encore.
They seemed suspicious, either that that was true,
or that the same song, repeated, wouldn’t just be lame.
When they queued up “In Paris” for the encore
and then again a second time, three times,
when they kept starting anew from the beginning,
we were all of us liable to go Michael.
Jackson, Tyson, Jordan, Game 6. You name it.
We were all, right then, in Paris, getting fucked up, too.
5.
Last November, driving to the Watch the Throne concert
in Detroit, I told the girls I’d that morning
seen online that Jay Z and Kanye sometimes play
“In Paris” multiple times, repeatedly, as an encore.
They seemed suspicious, either that that was true,
or that the same song, repeated, wouldn’t just be lame..
After the fifth time through, Kanye said last week,
in Boston, they’d done the song six times.
Did we think we could handle that many?
Did we think we deserved as much as Boston?
Were as good as Boston? Better? What did we think?
We, dare I say, went even more gorillas.
(One more time?)
6.
Last November, driving to the Watch the Throne concert
in Detroit, I told the girls I’d that morning
seen online that Jay Z and Kanye sometimes play
“In Paris” multiple times, repeatedly, as an encore.
They seemed suspicious, either that that was true,
or that the same song, repeated, wouldn’t just be lame.
After the sixth round, Jay and Ye started off the stage
We’d tied for most times they’d done the song in a row
I looked at the girls like, “See? That was awesome.”
And it had been. And they agreed. It shouldn’t have been,
but it was. We were tired, sweaty, voices hoarse
from shit being so cray…
And then they ran back out again!
7.
Last November, driving to the Watch the Throne concert
in Detroit, I told the girls I’d that morning
seen online that Jay Z and Kanye sometimes play
“In Paris” multiple times, repeatedly, as an encore.
They seemed suspicious, either that that was true,
or that the same song, repeated, wouldn’t just be lame.
They kept coming back out, we kept cheering.
We all kept skating, to one song, one song only.
We agreed, we, too, would have married Kate and Ashley.
We knew Gucci. Louis. Drugs. And what was that jacket
Ye was wearing? Margiela? We were watching the throne.
We let Kanye get in his zone. We were all definitely in the zone.
Aaron Burch's first full length collection of stories, Backswing, will be out next year from Queen's Ferry Press. He edits Hobart: another literary journal.
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