John Henry Meets Paul Bunyan
It didn’t happen
like Remember the Titans
or Rocky and Apollo
hugging while the ocean
tickled their perfect
chocolate and vanilla thighs—
every rope and hood and shackle
washed clean by the light
of a black smile aping
a white smile.
If they met, they had to
be more like Wesley
and Woody in White Men Can’t Jump.
At the camp fire, Paul shouting about the fundamentals
of being a folk hero
and John giving him shit
about the wack songs he whistles,
making one too many jokes
about fried ox tails.
They had to grab at each other’s tools,
argue over the best way for a man to swing,
if a better man cuts every shadow from the world
or cracks the earth like a big brown egg.
Spittle hanging from their lips
and the echoes of their boasts hanging
on every wind from Coosa to Dakota.
They’d only grow quiet when their camp
was invaded by the godly low hum
of an oncoming engine.
They’d break camp and hold
hands a second longer than legends should
before they walked their separate ways.
by Jason McCall
It didn’t happen
like Remember the Titans
or Rocky and Apollo
hugging while the ocean
tickled their perfect
chocolate and vanilla thighs—
every rope and hood and shackle
washed clean by the light
of a black smile aping
a white smile.
If they met, they had to
be more like Wesley
and Woody in White Men Can’t Jump.
At the camp fire, Paul shouting about the fundamentals
of being a folk hero
and John giving him shit
about the wack songs he whistles,
making one too many jokes
about fried ox tails.
They had to grab at each other’s tools,
argue over the best way for a man to swing,
if a better man cuts every shadow from the world
or cracks the earth like a big brown egg.
Spittle hanging from their lips
and the echoes of their boasts hanging
on every wind from Coosa to Dakota.
They’d only grow quiet when their camp
was invaded by the godly low hum
of an oncoming engine.
They’d break camp and hold
hands a second longer than legends should
before they walked their separate ways.
by Jason McCall
Jason McCall is an Alabama native, and he currently teaches at the University of Alabama. He holds an MFA from the University of Miami, and his collections include Two-Face God (WordTech Editions, forthcoming), Dear Hero, (winner of the 2012 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize), Silver (Main Street Rag), I Can Explain (Finishing Line Press), Mother, Less Child (co-winner of the 2013 Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Prize), and he and P.J. Williams are the editors of the forthcoming It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop (Minor Arcana Press).
