Cabo Verde na Copa!

 SEASCAPE WITH VESSEL

(for Cizè)

Because tonight—

even before you mouth 

the sound of Sodade
as tho your middle name
was melancholy
swept into ten pebbles
on the Atlantic’s azure carpet—
from the end of the bar

the Mindelo in you

reminds me that if

my name is Dias-Porter,

then surely 

I understand diaspora.
And here, I kneel 

to consider the single malt timbre
sealed in your amber voice,
how a passarinho’s

blue tale rises in a spiral

before floating 

on the sine waves
of our sorrow.
Could this be why 

with the ease of a girl
rinsing sea salt from her hair
or the rhythm of a boy
kicking a ball of socks,
you pick Frutu Proibido
to ripen in the night,
or a Destino Negro
steered by the darkness

between stars?
Why the wailing vessel

of your voice hums 

of so many of your sons
working the docks in Rotterdam,
of so many of your daughters 

waiting in Brockton 

between the tables of taverns?
Is this why you tilt your head

to squint at the horizon
for the hope of a rising hull?

And yes, one could grumble

you burned through your gift

like lava through

a pack of Marlboros,

but for us whose only birthright
is a Gerbera daisy

in a dusty wind,
you became a black saint 

of both morabeza 

& despidida,
your words billow

in the Bentu Lestri,

yet remain moist as black sand 

after the sea's blue kiss.
Perhaps I’m merely prickly

as the arms of a pear cactus,

but let this be why

if there is no rain
the liquid of your syllables
soaks into our soil,
or if there is no grain
a kernel of your chorus
sprouts in our mouths.
Why your voice seems to circle 

into the shell of a turtle 

as it seeks to return us

to those ten rugged rocks

wrinkling the aqua silk 

of the sea.