Happy Helen Folásadé Adu Day!

Is your love HyperQBic? 

Does it have Alchemical acrostics? 

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, how many 

more dream cycles 

must I hold my breath

until your cat eyes

& rebel red nails

re-press their crescents

into the midnight sky 

of my back?

Until your vixen lipstick

recrosses the ravine 

of No Return

to sip me once more

like a sommelier?

Ifemi, is it a rhyme 

when not even 

the nutty undertone 

of almond blossoms 

can stop a man

from being spotted 

like a Luna moth 

by the halo 

of your porch light?

Ifemi, it seems 

only this morning

that your fingers—

half icicle, half feather—

counted every curl

on my neck—

but who traces 

your phases

of the moon tattoo now?

Ifemi, should 

our eyes meet again, 

I promise to parse

your wrist’s brassy passion 

for prayer beads

& police bracelets

and how your husky pleas

might crown

 my love as king.

Ifemi, why do

I seek cashmere

from palms red

with symbols 

of five types of fury?

Ifemi, if I dissolve 

into the blue flame 

of your breath, 

will I subsist

as breath, 

or simply burn?

Oh, freckled cheeks of Jesus,

I now begin to grasp

why Shakespeare claimed

 Cupid kills

some with arrows,

some with traps,

 but Ifemi, who knows

which angle of light

 could reveal

what’s hidden

in the amber 

of your irises?

Ifemi, is it written

—as a saxophone

curls into cursive—

that a fool for roses

must remain

a fool for rain? 

I don’t believe

you wrote

“a love like hours won’t last”

before your ponytail 

braided with ache 

swung past 

that first flame of bud 

to our last good buy.  

Yet Ifemi, how can 

I be sure if 

your hair’s scent 

of sandalwood & citrus

would settle 

what a held breath

seemed to be trying 

to say about absence 

as a way of staying?