Pray Tell Has Only Six Months To Live

Actor Billy Porter “Pray Tell” dressed to dare.~aw

PRAY TELL HAS ONLY SIX MONTHS TO LIVE

©2021 by Alice Walker

I learned last night
That Pray Tell
Has only six months
To live.
In him I see my brothers
And comrades
In arms:  Ivory, our hairdresser,
with whom
My well-raised daughter
Spent afternoons
Sprawled reading and
Telling jokes
Across his death bed,
And beloved Renaissance
Dresser Rudolph Byrd
The most exquisite
Of brothers
Who defended me
Even while dying
With a wit that cut
Through bullshit
Like a sword.

There is no word
For how lost we are without
Every one
Of our irreducible
And outrageous
Brothers.
The ones who stand
With us
Sometimes
In borrowed
(from us)
Pearls and high heels.

I love the beauty of Pray Tell.

Sometimes it feels
An inarguable fact:
That Benin in all its parts
Was always
In our hearts,
Often in our dress and make-up
Our ingenuity and dignity
And most certainly
-May the church finally
Say:
Forgive Me and Amen –
In the serenity
Of our stoic
And transcendent
Pose.

***

Posted July 30, 2021 @ 00:17:24