Ode to African Queen
You are dark as religion. Remember God
could not have named a modicum of light without you.
You are plum, black currant, passion
fruit in another woman’s garden. You are Black
as and as if by magic. Black not as sin, but a cave’s jaw
clamped shut by forgiveness. Color of closed wombs and bellies
of ships, you, dark as not the tree trunk but its every cleft.
I chart each crescent moon rising above fingernail
and rub together my thighs for want of you. I try
to find you where the pages of books meet. You hang
where men or piano keys segregate. When I miss you,
I remember the hickey the sun left on the back of my neck.
If I forget, I smoke blunts down to my fingertips
and beg you to come on my lips. This is how I pray for you
when I’m not pessimistic. I bow to your darkness like I kneel
beside a child’s bed, confessing as gospel, there’s no monster here.
04.01.2020
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