Happy Helen Folásadé Adu Day!

Is your love HyperQBic?

Does it have the colorpuntal pearls of a ghost poem? 

Here we go again. 

I’m not thirsty, you’re thirsty  

 A TRACE OF IMPROVISATION 

AS MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

“Didn’t I tell you what I believe,

did somebody say that . . .”

Sade

Once, I knelt

almost nightly

to hum

a red carnation

& blue jasmine psalm 

 — a hummingbird

hovering for nectar.

Once, my neck

needed nothing

but the magenta lines

of prayer

your lips left 

at its nape

and my nipples

needed nothing except 

the cornsilk calm

fingers found

under our sheets.

Was I wrong

not to believe 

what you whispered

or seemed to whisper

in my ear?

All moons wane

and perhaps because 

of the “shadow

box & double cross”

of two tongues

or because I failed

 to heed your wrists

twin crave 

for velvet-lined 

police bracelets

and obsidian

prayer beads

your fingers

now trace

 another man’s tattoos.

And perhaps 

not wane as failure

but a decrescendo

in the key of F

I can hum

under my atheist breath.

Was our last adieu

a riff to resolve

our differences

in F flat

or a riff in the bass

to loop my faith

into a fugue in the rain?

Who knows

what any religion 

requires beyond belief?

Perhaps now,

I believe nothing—

but some nights

the outer ear

of the moon

seems to hear a man 

tuning his carnation 

& cornflower guitar

to the notes

of blue jasmine

you left

in his blankets

and sheets.