Mannish Boy for Bob Pajich

by Kristofer Collins

I will never know what Muddy Waters
thought in his green suit and chunky gold
ring as his leg leaps up and crashes down
and his cheeks shake anymore than I
could say on such and such day
Einstein had a hard-on watching
the students pass under his ivied window,
and I might as well admit I used to spy
on our neighbor, a woman known to prepare
meals in the nude, the brown medallions
of her areolas still bring a tiny pain
to my groin, so it should come as no surprise
as we sit on a brick porch in East McKeesport,
or stumble out of some bar on Electric Ave.,
or when Nathan, rolling a cigarette in the booth
at Nico's, leans in to laugh at something
one of us has said and someone in the other room
yells, “Fuck, shit!” at the lottery drawing
that I wish I could say how any one of us
got here but really I do understand it doesn't matter
and there's a green suit out there waiting
for each of us eventually.