We're All Allowed To Have One Hokey Thing About Us Poem by Chocolate Waters

(Dedicated to all the women in the world who were able to give up every man in their lives except Elvis)

I wouldn't tell this to many people
but from the time I was eight years old
I have been a raving
screaming
knock-over-chairs leap-over-buildings come-in-the-pants
Elvis Presley freak...
Well, I never really screamed
but I did
see LOVE ME TENDER 32 times
collect 3,000 black & white & color photographs
belong to 25 Elvis Presley fan clubs
and have
in my possession
(encased in a small gold box)
a piece of an Oak tree which Elvis himself
was reputed to have leaned against
in Tupelo, Mississippi.
In the fifth grade I slicked back my hair
practiced Presley's grin
lifting up my upper lip/thinking to myself that I was him.
I don't think it was
his millions
or his pink Cadillacs/or his motorcycles/
or his Graceland mansion.
I think it was
all those lovely women/always at his fingertips
and yes
there's nothing hokey
about that.

From Take Me Like A Photograph, Eggplant Press,1977