Chocolate Waters

We're All Allowed To Have One Hokey Thing About Us (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.

Reprinted by permission of the author, Chocolate Waters from her book of poetry: Take Me Like A Photograph, Eggplant Press Copyright © 1977 and 2000 by Chocolate Waters All rights reserved