In the early 1870s, at the mouth of the Big Bend tunnel,

John Henry beat a mechanical steam drill in a “steel driving”

contest. Moments after, he dropped dead from complete

physical and mental exhaustion.

•              He knew the brunch specials by heart. He knew the
               OJ needed sugar without sipping it first. I go, “Can’t
               we enjoy new foods together? Why take me someplace
               you’ve already eaten?”

The John Henryism hypothesis assumes that African Americans

are routinely exposed to psychosocial stressors (e.g., financial

strain, job insecurity, and social insults linked to race or social

class) that require considerable energy each day to manage.

•              Watching suburban insecurities perforate another
               Keisha on FOX 5, we notice bedazzled apples on her
               cadaver jean butt. I go, “Apple Bottom in 2022? Where her
               fur boots at?” He spews Heineken down the duvet, and I
               consider how our denim statistically outlives its buyer while,
               it’s probable, Levi Strauss and Brooks Brothers don’t face
               this bloodswag likelihood.

John Henryism is measured by a participant’s
level of agreement with the following statements:

(1) I’ve always felt that I could make of my life
pretty much what I wanted to make of it.

•              He keep looking for receipts. He wanna see
               the female I’m being during the week.
               Could my baby be born with that?

(2) Once I make up my mind to something, I stay with it until
the job is completely done.

•              In a second nightmare, I deliberately call all my dirt night
               skies off, hush my ovaries into a bowtie — wall-to-wall
               starshine. In it, I’m a new Keisha blowing the sergeant,
               miming schadenfreude! in his nooses. Last thing I do is
               lemon the lesion, citrus visiting me with cruelty.

(3) I like doing things that other people thought could not be done.

•              Fructose is addictive, so I might be in trouble. Not that I necessarily
               crave it, but when it’s available I don’t deprive my taste. At the OB
               clinic, they swab my sense then mention the blues, though I tenant
               the same sick hood as you. How’s your blood taking sugar with
               such sportsmanship?

(4) When things don’t go the way I want them to, that just makes me work even harder.

•              What I meant was         could my baby be born         with that tension?

Italicized stanzas are quotes from the scholarly article “John Henryism and the Health of African Americans,” published in Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 1994.