Contents -- Acknowledgments -- rhythm -- For the Woman Who Didn't Know My Name -- music: one -- The Famous Door -- Prayer -- The Masked Woman -- At 25, I Have Already Begun to Like Lou Rawls -- Yea, Though I Walk -- Order of Adoption in the Matter of Minor #44478 -- music: two -- Rites of Passage -- Poem for Mv Sisters -- A, -- Hey A, (Mr. Sausage Lips) -- Johnny -- Dreadlock -- Exercise in Tension or Truth or Whatever -- "The Cholesterol Can Make You Stupid" -- Collard Folk -- dance -- Dré -- Benjamin -- The Prospect of Tomi-Terre -- Curating the Boogie Down -- Tour Guiding Our Nation's Capital -- Sunday Dinner at Miss Rayella's -- Tower -- "It Wasn't Not Funny" -- Refrigerator Mouth -- As On Every Saturday at 12 -- John Edgar Wideman, Apologies -- The First Time I Saw Flo-Jo -- Once Upon aTime -- Nora -- Zawadi -- Oo-bop-she-bam -- In Search of Aunt Jemima -- Ode of the Hoodoo Woman -- Breeze Driftin' On By -- Notes -- About the Author.