The Jump and the Jazz Record (Bessie Coleman)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You were a manicurist
on the South Side
and you wanted to fly
and the flying schools
in America
looked at you
and saw
a Black woman
from Texas
who did nails
and said no
in the way
America said no
to that sentence
in nineteen nineteen
and the no
tasted like
the dry
acetone bite
of a polish remover
on a cuticle
that was never
the point.

So you learned French
because the runway
in France
did not care
what language
the no
had been said in.

[Verse 2]
You crossed the Atlantic
with your French textbook
and your savings
from the salon
and a man in Le Crotoy
taught you
to fly a Nieuport
and you flew it
the way a body flies
a war plane
when the war plane
is the first thing
in its life
that has not
asked it
to be smaller
and the vestibular system
of a woman
in an open cockpit
at two thousand feet
for the first time
does not
send a warning.
It sends
a correction.
*This
is the altitude
you were
calibrated for.*

[Chorus]
You barnstormed.
Loops
and figure eights
and parachute jumps
at county fairs
and the crowds
saw
the lady daredevil
and went home
different
and could not
quite say why
because the why
had the bright
kerosene smell
of a sentence
rewriting itself
in front of
an audience
that had
come
for the trick
and stayed
for the sentence.

[Outro]
The plane
went down
in Jacksonville
because nobody
would sell you
a new one
and the old Jenny
failed
the way
old Jennys fail
and the sky
did not.
The sky
never said no.
The runway
was the problem.
The sky
was yours
the whole time.

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