The Ten Commandments

Jericho Brown

But I could be covetous. I could be a thief. 

 Could want and work for. Could wire and 

 Deceive. I thought to fool the moon into 

 A doubt. I did some doubting. Lord, 

 Forgive me. In New Orleans that winter, 

 I waited for a woman to find me shirtless 

 On her back porch. Why? She meant it 

 Rhetorically and hit me with open hands. 

 How many times can a woman say why 

 With her hands in the moonlight? I counted 

 Ten like light breaking hard on my head, 

 Ten rhetorical whys and half a moon. Half-

 Nude, I let her light into me. I could be last 

 On a list of lovers Joe Adams would see, 

 And first to find his wife slapping the spit 

 Out of me. I could be sick and sullen. I could 

 Sulk and sigh. I could be a novel character 

 By E. Lynn Harris, but even he'd allow me 

 Some dignity. He loved black people too 

 Much to write about a wife whipping her rival 

 On a night people in Louisiana call cold. 

 He'd have Joe Adams run out back and pull 

 Her off of me. He wouldn't think I deserved it.