A reading  from the book of  Willie Maxwell 679:1738

...    then Rap Gawd formed a man
from the dust of the auto-tune
&breathed into his nostrils
the breath of Rémy Martin
the man became Fetty Wap.

Rap Gawd saw fit to
make Fetty a counterpart.
so he caused the man to fall into a deep sleep;
while he was sleeping
he took one of the man’s eyes
then closed up the place with flesh.
then the Rap Gawd made a woman
from the eye he had taken out of the man.

the creation story of Fetty
the first trap rapper to make a song
I might play at my wedding.

there’s a choir of church mothers
smiling down on the brown boy
that sings of a woman’s worth
in a culture destined to nullify it.
do you know how long
sisters been waiting
for a brother
to willingly let us hit the bando?
(after patiently explaining what the fuck that means.)

l’union fait la force
your music emblematic of the motto of Haiti
unity makes strength

as we scream SQUAAADDDD!
the weight of that bass
hits hard
like Gawd’s tears
landing on glow in the dark floors
’cause Gawd does not just “cry”
He makes it rain
on a crowd of women
in heels higher than most GPAs
dancing their way through
nursing school
&out of some deadbeat’s
roach-filled 1 bedroom.

the fellas
big brother
arm-wrapped shoulders
singing off-key
about Ki’s &pies
and other shit
they have no real idea about.
the only song in the club
that allows a hetero male
to gaze into the eyes
of another
[suspected] hetero male
and/or stranger
singing his fucking heart out.

make him more mathematician
than murderer
spewing lyrics repping
the urban district’s finest cognac
this
is a black man’s
“Sweet Caroline”
oh, oh, oh!

Fetty, you got me —
I, too, see heaven
peering through
the pearly-gated smile
of that gap-toothed princess
in your video.

I, too, have a glock in my rari —
in the form of a master’s degree
but don’t get it twisted
this summa cum laude bloaw
anytime a motherfucker think
they know me!
&my trap look a lot
like a dimly-lit cafe
with semicold
red stripes
a microphone
a couple judges
but I’ll be damned
if anyone tell me
I ain’t a queen of this shit.
&then I blink
&the bass subsides
&the song fades
into another brother
caring more
about his golden grill
than making the best
of a family business.

&she picks up her ass
her purse
slides off the pole
disappears
into a mixture
of low-budget smoke machines
&catcalling men

wedding bands tangled
in the drawstring of their sweats

&another Saturday twerks
itself into the crisp breeze of Sunday morning
&the church mothers glance over the room
covered in government-issued confetti
&Gawd smiles
as they bellow in unison

“I want you to be mine again!”