You Already Know

 AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING

“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,

didn’t I say that . . .”

Sade

Ifemi, how many REM cycles 

since your love leaped 

the ravine of No Return

to open me as a sommelier

would a wine bottle,

since the bright crescents

of my nails waxed across

the black sky of your back,

since the saxophone

signaled tomorrow?

Learnèd astrologer

I found your love

amidst a constellation

of mercurial lips

glossy enough

to lapse all logic,

& unlike logic

you bid me crave

the crow-colored tresses

of what many pray

to be saved from.

Freckled cheeks of Jesus,

who can tell how many

calligraphic kisses

could be needed to spell 

or dispel what butterflies

write in rooms filled

with strawberry irises. 

It’s been written

—sense the saxophone

signal’s sorrow,

a fool for roses

is a fool for rain—

but how to uproot

the twin legends

of your legs

blooming into heels

stiletto enough

to fell a forest entire?

Ifemi, I found your love

both freed and fried 

as the symbols inside

a theorem derived 

from four types of feral.

Yet not symbols & not derived. 

Scents the saxophone

signals borrowed—

let’s not wrestle

with how you left me

or the difference between

a half wound and what

wound up happening.

Or what it could mean

to remain untethered

by an ankle tattoo’s

brassy passion 

for adinkra charms

and police bracelets.

Perhaps I hummed

the wrong songs

with the right lyrics

or the right songs

with the wrong lyrics,

but how many dawns

found your love

hung over the railing

of Old Crow moans

or sizzling unstrung

between a first flame of bud

& one last good buy?

And how many more

need spot me flitting

like a Leopard moth

around a porch light,

turning to unlock

a mystery like magnetism

with keys hidden under

the tea rose carpet

of another woman’s tongue?