I wrote this poem years ago, but was never satisfied with the ending.

SOLO (IN THE KEY OF NICOLE)
 
She’s Miss Sweet Potato Brown
 a steamy cocoa statuette
   with caramel-colored eyes
and fine tuned fingers.
And with pepper tongue twirling
   she sets whole rooms whirling
her black tresses swirling
 so devilishly dervish
and needlessly nervous
 though wordlessly
   wordlessly weird.
After kissing her
 I stumble into a drugstore
   and desperately undress all the chocolate bars.
Though she refuses all my flowers
 and will not hold my hand
   she sleeps with me in a heavy sweater
     almost frantically afraid of the cold.
And it’s not until morning light
 over raspberry tea, that I read
   in the lines around her smile
that she's parked in passion’s alley
 searched through many cans
and shivered in the shadows
 with moon-stained hands.

Seascape with Vessel

Her voice
calls in currents,
the melody washing
like incoming waves.
Medleyed
with a moving sun,
her aria tracks
the heart's arc.
As all that would rise
fear what falling may follow,
she is careful,
sings of descent first,
is cautious with what
she allows to be heard
in the harmony.
She knows the sea
and the Song of Salt
are composed
in the same key,
but still chooses
to bathe in what
the tide utters
in the interim,
word
by rising
word.

Her voice
is more searchlight
than song, splashes the dunes
with waves of something
wilder than water.
Her lyrics are a people's sighs
medleyed with moonlight,
a geyser like whales exhaling.
Since tears also shine,
what saline circles
she's tasted, sparkle
like traces of grace
in the foam
swirling across
what beaches she walks.
And we wonder
what price of translation
she pays, as she sings
in a dress that is fraying
and slowly utters
every word
by barefoot
word.