Say Word?

I smuggled (one might say

        took       cept they didn’t know what I had) I had 

        smuggled the ancestors by way of my

yearly travel stipend from the college $1500 (yeah

        I’m putting they weak business in the     streets) $1500 

made cheap travel, I smuggled

the ancestors by way of cheap (don’t that sound bout sad)

travel carried all us (what looked like     jus me) to AWP where 

I could hit up at least of few of the elders since Toi was 

keynoting and Angela was reading and Tim was getting his 

flowers and—          I was shady. I couldn’t say the shit out 

loud, had to message it     skinny,

get the okay to show up at

       somebody’s Airbnb, hotel suite, what have you.

                 But for real, “What have you?” they asked—

                                                                   (what couldn’t be said.)

Elders don’t dig being wakened so

                                What have you was

the loud question on the threshold, then I reached into 

my bag and produced        (et voila!)        my radio

—an eighties relic

with the stank to prove it, so everybody

from Angela on down looked at me like (da fuq?) 

           till I said what I said!

“Everyone is in here.” I pointed to the musty instrument.

“Who,” I asked Afaa, Ed, Toi, Cornelius, I asked Harryette,

           “you wanna talk to first?”