Apropos of nothing

A CRY OF IMPROVISATION AS KNOTS IN A ROPE TYING UP A BOAT

—Morna por Apofenia

I don’t know how, 

but nearly every night 

sleep pulls me deep

into the harbor of Soncente, 

into the harbor

of your lingering scent

where your feet—Beloved—

sow prints in the dry sand 

of my dreams.

My pupils scan the sky,

but find only Passarinhos 

above screeching

“So deus pode danu txuba.”

The loggerhead turtle

of my heart returns 

to Santantón’s green leaves

for the shade of your eyes,

the limber Santa Luzia breeze

of your legs,

the brown Sanikolau hills

of your hips.

Dreams of your Sal white smile,

your Bubista round pout,

your fingers—

Djarmai’s narrow streets.

Dreams of your lips bold

as badiu di Santiagu,    

your hair descending into

Djarfogo’s black strands,

that chin dotted

by the mole

of Djabraba.

I kneel to whisper:

“May her Kriolu tongue

someday become 

a sliver of kana

between my lips.”

I feel the leite fresku

of sea foam on my legs

while a breeze bends

all the palm trees

and an airplane weaves

a white thread

through the sky’s blue silk.

But the accordion

of the Atlantic swells

as a bruxa bedju

hisses that these islands 

are merely rocks

in a random patch of algae,

that what I seek

may not be seeking me.

Yet my heart still beats

a batuku—

are these not

West Africa's fingertips

reaching towards America, 

reaching towards me?

Tonight, the evil eye

of the moon shines

like the underside of a tuna.

Fishermen on the beach

wonder if my heart 

will remain a goat

gnawing volcanic rocks,

wonder how far 

I’ll sift through shifting dunes

for a spoonful 

of your catxupa rico?

Does the ancient proverb 

not say “Ken ki tene

medu di tubaron,

ka ta ba mar”?

But my grandmother 

ki ka tem falha na boca

says “Love is stronger than grogu,

can convince you to build a house 

in a volcano's mouth.”

My pen ploughs

new lines across a barren page,

carves brown stanzas 

into terraces up 

the hillside of drought,

but the bentu lestri 

still bends 

a lone acacia tree

in the direction 

of this question—

how long must

the bonfire of my heart

blaze on this empty beach?

Am I just a burru 

circling daily

to grind a sorry grain?

A rising sun burns away

the morning haze.

I awaken to kanta di tchota,

my heart a pilon pounding.

I roll over and glimpse

two prints 

glistening like txuba

on my pillowcase.