{"id":116800,"date":"2022-06-25T21:23:32","date_gmt":"2022-06-26T01:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/?p=116800"},"modified":"2022-06-25T21:23:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T01:23:32","slug":"the-holy-of-holies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/the-holy-of-holies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holy of Holies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Holy of Holies<\/strong><br \/>\nWe<br \/>\ncousins would prostrate ourselves in play<br \/>\nMaking believe in hushed tones<br \/>\nWhile above us two generations of uncles and aunts spun our lineage.<\/p>\n<p>They were all swollen ankles, cracked heels,<br \/>\ntrouser socks, and work boots.<br \/>\nTheir voices would float<br \/>\nethereal thick clouds of hymns rich with cigarette smoke<br \/>\nand guttural laughter and residue from midnight\u2019s tears.<br \/>\nWe would brush the hems of their garments careful<\/p>\n<p>not to shake anointed threads.<\/p>\n<p>They chronicled an uncle crouching behind a bush with a BB-gun<br \/>\nhunting a mean grandfather, who<br \/>\njourneyed by moonlight to Paris, TN for days at a time to visit<br \/>\nthe family he had to leave behind.<br \/>\nTold of a sister whose dinners took too long to cook but appeared from bare cabinets like magic,<br \/>\na sister who fought men like a man to protect her softness,<br \/>\na sister who danced money out of wallets, the hip hypnotist.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019d weave robes with golden thread for sharecroppers,<br \/>\nfasten blue ribbon to golden crowns for wanderers who\u2019d lost their minds,<br \/>\nstitched ephods that sutured soldiers by reminding them of home.<\/p>\n<p>They bestowed recipes like sacrement, and<br \/>\nhummed prophetic wisdom into our ears like poetry.<\/p>\n<p>The griots burst with laughter that<br \/>\nquickened us from the floor into sukhasana and vajrasana.<br \/>\nAs they chanted the names of the dead until they<br \/>\nconjured them from the walls, carpet, couch cushions, cabinets, and drapes.<br \/>\nUntil the ancestors circled the room to the rhythm of the oscillating fan<br \/>\nGD\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Addie\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0James<br \/>\nRuth\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Barker<br \/>\nBertha Mae\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Frankie<br \/>\nwashing over us like anointing oil<br \/>\nwhile we played.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Holy of Holies We cousins would prostrate ourselves in play Making believe in hushed tones While above us two generations of uncles and aunts spun our lineage. They were all swollen ankles, cracked heels, trouser socks, and work boots. Their voices would float ethereal&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4411,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4411"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116840,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116800\/revisions\/116840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}