DC PLACES ISSUE Thomas Sayers Ellis   TAMBOURINE TOMMY More man Than myth, more myth Than freak, he would come out Between bands In a harness of bells And high-waters Held together and up By a belt of rope. His skin was thick As friendship, his spot-lit scalp Clean as the repaired dome Of the U.S. Capitol. Rickety raw And rickety strong, He'd run from Barry Farms To Mount Vernon With bricks Borrowed from the wall Around St. Elizabeth's Hospital In each hand. There was struggle In his dance, Like first-of-the-month Or Election Day downtown. His arms tried to Free Terrance Johnson, His trickster legs Rayful Edmond But such drama Never made him more Than spectacle or more Than beast. No one thought Of him as artist, No one thought Of him as activist. His craft, the way He beat himself (head, shoulders, knees and toes), proved he Was one of us, A soul searcher Born and raised In the District, Proved he Could reach in, Blend, ease before entering, Proved he Was our phoenix, Nobody's Stonestreet, Part hustler, part athlete, Tougher than all of Southeast.   Thomas Sayers Ellis was born and raised in Washington, DC.  He cofounded The Dark Room Collective and received his MFA from Brown University in 1995.  He is the author of three books: The Good Junk (part of Take Three: I, Graywolf Press, 1996), The Genuine Negro Hero (Kent State University Press, 2001), and The Maverick Room (Graywolf Press, 2005).  He coedited On the Verge: Emerging Poets and Artists (Faber & Faber, 1993), and is a contributing editor of Callaloo.  He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and the Lesley University low-residency MFA program.   Published in Volume 7, Number 3, Summer 2006.   Read more by this author: Thomas Sayers Ellis: Audio Issue Thomas Sayers Ellis: It's Your Mug Anniversary Issue Thomas Sayers Ellis: Langston Hughes Tribute Issue