"Hair," by Micah Freeman

At a poetry reading organized by Cy-Press Poetry at Thunder-Sky, Inc. last week, Micah Freeman read this beautiful poem about Amy Winehouse.  We wanted to share it...

HAIR

"Physical ain't even my type." -Amy Winehouse


Me and Amy Winehouse are eating a sandwich together and being followed. "Sandwich," she says.

"Next door, let's go." Funny Games is being filmed shot for shot. Most of the time I want to ask Amy
about the weather but we discuss sandwiches instead. By the time we get to the weather we're already in Louisville. Driving around. Collecting every copy of the Gremlins series on VHS. Burning them at the Speedway. Get hype off horse race long passed. We start working together. She talks about her lunch she brought or a spinach ricotta pie. I know she hates the pie though. It's been two years. We scratched the shit out of our hood. "O' Dunes," Mountain Dew tempts us both. We start wearing yellow flip flops. There is no gate keeper for all the Ipods and Wonderlands. How many people are going, it's like who's going paint balling.

Me and Amy have enough room/puppies.

Start staring off into space. "I absolutely agree." Assess the situation. Me and Amy, a war going on, Cadillac's crashing into each other, doesn't know them as well, nothing last is forever, so we cut our losses, and open some Tanqueray. The Lord of Cars intersects with our lunch. I love Amy but today we're in trouble.

We've been through a lot. The cards are stacked. Lay against them motionless against us. This is the end I know. Me and Amy eat candy just like honey. We've tried everything.

We live in a landfill but Amy's happy as long as she's got a green cushion couch or bed. We bathe all day on this particular day we can't get a break. We're picking up dust and silos get to the side of us. Amy wants to run in that. I'm sorry Amy, you're bathing with a green cushion. We lay back and enjoy the panoramic view, the chance of the landfill being a fragile environment. Amy produced a dune. It went to Detroit. We both looked at a note in Farsi. Tried to make a license plate brochure from scratch. We eat some tic tacs and watch the hitch hikers grow beards and teeth. We slowly drove around it. Amy, if they would have known you had your choice between the U.S. Europe & Israel. "Yeah." Do you have Wisconsin?

It's being ripped out of my mouth. Amy Winehouse is the best. Of all people, sometimes I take forever,
using the bathroom with Amy Winehouse. I have a lens. It will exit you. That is correct, Me and Amy get some ice cream. Me and Amy come home from work early. We make jewelry. We are water animals.

"It's because there are so many variants, Amy. There are so many, that, do you do, dead to me, slashed in a recession, with one waterfall, if you met another it would be starting, I know that it's begging stop. A waterfall skips. Why heard two three going to get asked the question, bang. Me and Amy share a few slim jims and drink some white wine, rest in peace Randy.

Me and Amy are suddenly fried. We eat some grilled cheese. We secrete fun. All these dudes just walk on over there. Me and Amy go to a historic fish town.

Me and Amy eat some nicotine lozenges.

Me and Amy go fishing for nickel. We catch some pennies on the wall. Me and Amy go on a cruise. We hit on bald people. Somebody will want it. Me and Amy enjoy it. Me and Amy talk to two cute ladies.

Me and Amy wake up together week after week. We catch up mid day. Amy wants more tattoos, but it won't be enough combat. We need to introduce more hair spray and twenty seven beds to live. Amy glanced at me today, I thought, feral hint, I thought, but she just wanted her beat box and ice. I play piano in the next room. It's the most house like room in the building. My apartment leads in to the commons. The piano is surrounded by garments and rugs and a window in the middle of the out doors. It echoes perfectly. I can hear Amy going to town on a sweet track muffled through the wall. I strike the piano and we can't hear each other.

Every day it rains for one unmemorable minute especially. Acknowledged and forgotten, intermittent categorical rehash episodes that delve next door, out wafting the air, but never a drop of rain. A particular kind of notice every once a while. It's that deep deep hair that drives me back to Amy Winehouse. She forfeits a normal hair. It is deep and wide and tufts out, whirling about, she keeps her hands in it and shouts. She grows unusual, she says nothing to me. She will not come to this room. I play a piano track.

What she said to me was, are you having a good time Micah? I said, Amy, please.

If Amy is on the top than I'm in a pinecone.

Me and Amy want to color but we can't find a coloring book. I don't know a thing about it.

Me and Amy put two pieces together. We brush our teeth.

Me and Amy wear shoes. Prada and Jimi Hendrix wear us. Me and Amy walk around Kroger's with a watermelon.

It's Tuesday.

It's Wednesday.

My whole salty dogs in this game above the spin. Me and Amy spin city, airing hopes in that has always been obscenely hidden. On the catwalk under bridges. On a few imbedded exposures. Inbound, durable as my local Walgreens. Forever a hut reminds us.

Me and Amy got drunk last night.

Me and Amy enter liberation. We leave the city in a few, nothing to talk about. We leave and say goodbye with words.

I'm not sure I can write anymore about me and Amy. Our grid effaced with future maneuvers, heaving delicate membranes, caught up in the obvious and unreal. Me and Amy indifferently pick matching tattoos.

Me and Amy go fishing on time. When we aren't fishing we wear socks and dip our feet in the pool next to the piano. We love the cool sopping pool water clinging to our feet. The pool makes reflections against our front teeth. A pine falls in the pool with extra force. I speak for myself when I say we had a great time. I have a headache momentarily.

Me and Amy convince a police officer to take a scenic beach sunset photo with us. We grab my camera and we all stand together. It doesn't make sense for me and Amy to make a pontoon boat together.

We have no materials and share nothing. It would be sweet if me and Amy could split up the check. I feel like me and Amy are starring in Lost in Translation.

We both play some of the parts. The side characters and story and filming and production come together and clobber our fake history. We search each other out or somewhere filming in Japan. Me and Amy are waiting for the shoot. Me and Amy sketch each other more frequently.

Me and Amy buy a shirt that says "Me and Amy kissed the Moose, 2011".

Me and Amy eat a nicotine lozenge in the shower.

Me and Amy blow dry our hair. We look good.

Me and Amy see so much blue and go back. "I am alone just with two other people." With each piece that goes away, it gets a little easier. Me and Amy drive to Florida, stop at a gas station, get a coffee and vermouth. Drive in to the pines. We're both blue and lit like a flock in sky. "Do you know what travel means in an airplane?" "Don't you have to see two things?" Me and Amy have to meet in this no wake zone. Tis a good lake but equally squeaky. It's best not to ask questions so specific. We get dressed up, try really hard, and travel at night. I get back late tomorrow night. What's maneuver. There were moments where a celebrity would be talking to me, and I'd look at them, and they'd still be speaking, and I'd blink and hope that by the time I'd un blinked back to sight, you would have parachuted down through the thin limbs of the sappy pine needles and shouted, NO TIME TO REGRET and ran to BP and stole a bunch of lighters and sap from the trees.

Amy makes a rule about putting beverages next to electronics. We went to a restaurant. Coffee and vermouth. We watch a DVD. Me and Amy have something weird. We taste it. Me and Amy don't write in the book. You got sixty pictures of me and Amy. You got a picture with a backdrop.

"Jamaica & Spain"