I woke up singing
my favorite song as a kid
and I mean, really singing,
catching myself all morning,
asking myself what it means,
a reminder perhaps
that we can be strange
— we wake, we sing,
we wonder why we’re singing,
we realize how seldom we have a song
in us anymore, remember how we
used to play/be Aretha and Anita
or Earth, Wind and Fire — Maurice
bringing it, sending us on one of the few oldies
where the words ‘right on’ don’t sound silly,
standing in the middle of the room
giving our all to the olive-green sofa
and wood paneling, mama at work
— we even had his little laugh down
and when’s the last time we believed
what we were saying so completely,
all that 70’s positivity, all that gospel
pretending to be the devil’s music
— and is that what ruined us, why we’re so bad
at real life — practically screaming the last line,
And if there ain’t no beauty, you gotta make some beauty,
deciding without even knowing we’d decided
that that — Lord help us — was the dream.
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This article appeared in the December 2025 print edition of the magazine.
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