Miss Marva Wright  

Sings Gospel at Rock n' Bowl

By Lee Meitzen Grue

You're boozing it up

since your man left and you haven't got the rent

because you drank it up.

you're feeling those blues when Marva leaves them

and lays on the gospel

until you feel that too

even if you haven't been to church since the last flood.

Barflies start falling out in the aisles

and somebody in white light

bring you water in a paper cup

to revive you

and you remember, Yeah, I've got a soul,

not connected to this body, if it

wants to it can fly away.

Marva says in her big voice, You came

to hear the blues, but wherever Marva sings the blues

she sings the gospel, so she takes it up again

until everything is washed out of you

and wrung out of you and you begin

to feel something near good

and then she reaches out her hand with the handkerchief

and her husband with the little moustache

comes up and hands her down

so gently from the stage.

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