On the day
                   One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.                                Billie Holliday

On the day I was born,
Billie Holiday was
let out of prison.

She had been no thorn
in the warden’s side, was
happy to feel the sun

on her face while I cried
from a doctor’s slap
across my hips.

Locked up inside
the womb of a cell, a mishap
for possession of narcotics, her lips

craved song, the way
I crave her voice, 
especially on my day

in 2017. The day
a whole damn poem fell
into place in my head.