AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING
“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,
didn’t I say that . . .”
Sade
Ifemi, how many more
REM cycles before
your winged eyeliner
leaps the ravine
of No Return to open me
as a sommelier would
a wine bottle—
before the bright crescents
of your nails wax across
the black sky of my back—
or before the saxophone
can’t signal sorrow?
Half icicle, half goddess,
only last night it seems
I sought your scent
between a gap
scarlet as the flesh
of a black watermelon,
yet glossy enough
to lapse all logic.
A seeking which
leaves my nose craving
a crow-shaded tangle
most men pray
to be saved from.
Freckled cheeks of Jesus,
who can tell how many
calligraphic kisses
might be needed to spell
or dispel what butterflies
write in rooms filled
with strawberry irises?
It’s been written
—since the saxophone
signals tomorrow—
that a fool for roses
is a fool for rain,
but what tool could
begin to uproot
those twin legends
still blooming into heels
stiletto enough
to fell a forest entire?
Ifemi, I seek the oneness
of two palms
freed or fried
as the symbols inside
a theorem derived
from three types of feral.
And yet not decipherable
or functionally defined.
A caress the saxophone
seems to borrow—
unless we forget
my being taken
or mistaken about
the need to be touched
or the difference between
a half wound and what
wound up happening.
What does it mean
to remain tethered
like a gothic hawk
to your ankle tattoo’s
brassy passion
for adinkra charms
or police bracelets?
Did I hum
the wrong lyrics
to the right songs
or the right lyrics
to the wrong songs?
So many dawns
have passed since your hair
swung over a bedpost
of Old Crow moans
to leave me
sizzling between
a last flame of bud &
that first good buy.
How many moons
before you stop me
from being spotted
like a Luna moth
in the halo of a porch light,
turning again & again
to unlock wonders
with keys hidden under
the tea rose carpet
of yet another
lover’s tongue?
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