YOU KNOW YOU KNOW YOU KNOW for Bill Withers

my mother always said he sang like he wasn’t

no light-skinned man. said his voice walked

a flat line, no nonsense, no running, just

a stand and deliver, sermonic, part your hair

kind of tone, like that west virginia coal

caught in his throat and blacked it up something

serious. up there strumming like a folkie,

but he ain’t no folkie. he our folk, for sure.