Thursday, January 16, 2025

Happy Helen Folásadé Adu Day!

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, it seems 

only this morning

that you whispered

I pressed

you into liquid 

like a bowl 

of virgin olives

while your fingers—

half flame, half feather—

counted every curl

on the back of my neck.

But who traces

 your dream catcher

tattoo now?


Ifemi, how many 

more sun & moon

cycles must I 

hold my breath

until your vixen lipstick

recrosses the ravine 

of No Return

to sip me once more

like a sommelier

& your rebel red nails

re-press their crescents

into the midnight sky 

of my back?


Ifemi, hummingbirds

hover over petals

for the possibility 

of nectar—

is it a rhyme 

if 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?


Oh, freckled cheeks of Jesus,

I may now grasp

why Shakespeare claimed

 Cupid kills

some with arrows,

some with traps,

 because who knows

which angle of light

 veils or unveils

what’s buried

in the amber 

of your irises?


Ifemi, if I dissolve 

into the blue flame 

of your breath, 

will I subsist

as breath, 

or simply burn?

Is it really written

—as a saxophone

curls into cursive—

that a fool for roses

is always

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. 


Ifemi, should 

our eyes meet again, 

I promise not 

to underestimate

your wrist’s brassy passion 

for prayer beads

& police bracelets.


Oh Ifemi, how long

until the traces  

of sandalwood & citrus

in your hair

begin to settle 

what every held breath

seems to be trying 

to say about absence 

as a way of staying?















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