Is your love HyperQBic?
Does it have colorpuntal pearls like a ghost poem?
Here we go again.
I’m not thirsty, you’re thirsty
AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION
AS MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING
“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,
did somebody say that . . .”
Sade
Ifemi, I believe
it was only this month
your name
was incense
drifting in my temple
and your fingers—
half flame, half forsythia—
found every curl
on the back of my neck.
But all moons wane
and who traces
your lunar phases
tattoo today?
And not wane
as in failure
but a bluer fugue
in the key of F
I cannot hum
with my atheist breath.
When I dissolved
in your sapphire flame,
did I simply burn?
I don’t believe
you meant
“a love like hours won’t last”
even as the ache
in your ponytail
was braided between
our first spark
and our last adieu.
Ifemi, as hummingbirds
hover over petals
for the promise
of nectar—
am I mishearing
the F minor psalm
of your wings
since not even the scent
of almond blossoms
can stop me from molting
into a Luna moth
under the halo
of your porch light?
Oh, freckled cheeks of Jesus,
now I grasp
why Shakespeare said
“Cupid kills
some with arrows,
some with traps.”
But your
curving fingers
left crescents
on the taper
of my neck
—a shape my nerves
cannot unknow.
Ifemi, if our eyes meet again,
I won’t ignore
your wrist’s brassy passion
for velvet lined
police bracelets
and obsidian
prayer beads.
Is it a fact
in the key of F flat
—as a bass line
curls into cursive—
that faith in forsythia
only blooms
into fugues
in the rain?
Ifemi, religions today
embrace belief
and in this they favor
the ancient religions
—I strum my guitar
to see if the traces
of sage & forsythia
you left on my sheets
might learn
waning as a means
of staying.
