BHM!

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS

AN ECHOLOCATION OF BLACKNESS

(after ashes)

A mythical village filled with echoes 

of talking drums from Ibadan,

or the sweet potatoes that root 

as some still dream of planting yams?

The musk of a hand carved mask,

or a funky lover feeling bituminous?

Could you spot it perhaps on the spectrum?

Do y’all hum or alhamdulillah?

O Lorde—do we decide to star it or tar it

as others have tried to find asphalt

in our absence of photons or perhaps

recite [carbon & oxygen & aluminum]

tho not as a ploy of blaxploitation

where most of the kinks got afro-picked out

and what was left only looked like a globe.

Or a melanite halo if some hot Mama needs

to braid or lay her baby hair for miles ahead

with [boron & lanthanum & carbon

& potassium & neon & sulfur & sulphur].

What elemental truth isn’t melasomorphic?

And yet, don’t we still whisper to cross it 

as if fingers or streets or an ocean

—to seek a return to the orishas tho

I often think they over hear.

So what. Don’t stuff your fingers 

in your ears or count the pentecost.

Don’t ask if that grammar has a rosary

or recipe written in cornrows on her head. 

Instead, address a question of the talking drum

—in what dream of eggshell shoes 

could these midnight blues even indigo?