In response to popular demand, we present “Michelle,” a poem imagining the night our new President took the First Lady out for the very first time.
Michelle
She answered the door
in a simple red dress,
her hair folded into a tight
spool – Barack wanted to grip
the polished rung
of her collarbone and climb
into her mouth, but this was
their first date, so they hot boxed
his blue Jetta until the smoke
was so thick it could be spread
onto shortcake, and he promised
her adjectives like interesting
and audacious, and he rolled
another jay, not wanting
to come ‘cross no square brother
at the firm,
and Michelle liked the way
his words were pennies flicked
into a fountain, and finally
they checked out a Spike Lee joint,
and after the movie he fit
his hand into hers all the way
home where he sealed his lips
to her ear and promised
an obelisk for her garden.
Michael Cirelli is the Executive Director of Urban Word NYC, an award-winning youth literary arts organization. He is also the author of Lobster with Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Hanging Loose 2008), which was a New York Times bestseller for poetry from an independent press, and Hip-Hop Poetry & the Classics (Milk Mug 2009), a standards-based curriculum that engages the intersection between hip-hop and classic poetry. His work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies, as well as featured in Poets & Writers, World Literature Today, King Magazine, and on Def Poetry Jam. His new book, Vacations on the Black Star Line, is forthcoming from Hanging Loose Press.
