The Story of Marriage

1. Tanka

This was their happy.

The stone reads my eyes.

She reaches from the ground,

tells me the story of marriage

in exactly thirty-one breaths.

2. Third Finger

You wear a size 15!?

Jeweler says, sizes stop at 12.

You swallow my hand

I feel your left palm years later

when it is old and wrinkled.

3. Wedding Day

The Limo is white.

We are groomed and on time

Graceland waits like love.

We embrace the minister,

dine at the top of the world.

4. Love Note

When I look into your eye

the other one opens lightly

its brown becomes our river

where I swim in you naked

searching for the road not taken.

5. Wedding Night

There is only one night

vibrating with single stars.

We name each one joy,

dance on the dark of the sky

memorize our light two-step.

6. Morning Tanka

The back of your head

rushing out of our driveway

highlights ears shaped

like the coffee cup you left

half gulped on my moist back.

7. Footnote

All of the drawers

and doors you opened watch.

I follow your steps.

Mumbling about messiness

I caress each place you left.

8. Anger

When the clock strikes one

we say more than we mean. Hurt,

you leave without eyes.

Home before the clock reads two,

we say what we mean together.

9. Dessert

My sweet tooth’s a tongue

licking the crumbs from cakes quick

hidden like secrets

in places in our kitchen your

hand has made easy to find.

10. Rescue

My car sits alone

in the lot like a left child

your truck is a steed

I carry poems from the kids

read them as you change the tire.

11. Breast Food

Inside I practice

living alone in Death’s house.

I say I’m not afraid,

you sit staring still as stone.

Your sudden tears on my t-shirt.

12. Heartbeat

I walk to your bed

holding my own hand. You start

ask Are you alright?

I rush to answer: My lips

kiss your smile, my eyes flowers.

13. Recitation

Your secret desire

spills from your mouth in a dream.

Asleep you recite

McKay’s “If we must die” and

the audience applauds forever.

*   *   *   *   *

Luscious

You turn me on like a black light

with your strong man’s hair everywhere

your hands can’t reach.  When I see you in red

I want cars to stop, lipstick to change its color—you

in a heart-shaped bed with a red bow around your neck—skin

sweating like I’m the desert.

Your mouth is a too ripe peach cobbler pie.

I’m the crust.  I trust you with everything I have to give love:

care, body fluid mingling.

Give me your funk, let me write a song about it, play

it next fourth of July on public square—nude except

for my new tattoo—an image of you.

*   *   *   *   *

“Self-Portrait”

              Jean Michel-Basquiat, 1980

Painted himself

inside out

Black as the middle

of the night.

Deformed hip, too big

foot, impotent as

George Washington Carver.

Shot horses

a black-on-being-black

pain killer.  Canvassed

the world in living color.

His work just-us

on brick walls, wood, napkins,

toilet paper.  Used

useful in white

folks’ basements

work, work, work, jerk

work, work, work, jerk—the sound

of snatched wet paintings living

on rich walls next to Warhol

now that he’s dead.

*   *   *   *   *

Don’t Walk

Crosswalks don’t have word-signs

anymore—something about illiteracy

and more and more people who come

here unable to read or speak English

like most of us who’ve been

here too long.

If you don’t understand “Don’t Walk”

you’ll understand this:

a red hand appears,

flashes three times

freezes in mid air just before

cars whiz by like flies

after a cow in the country.

When it’s time to leave the curb,

a naked white man makes the hand

disappear, like Indians in America—

appears to walk fast like time,

lets everyone know

who’s in charge.

*   *   *   *   *

Gregory Hines is dead

somewhere in the U.S. a Black

            man is figuratively lynched.

Red sneakers line up to dance around Hines’ grave,

Savion organizes a tap session—a eulogy of feet

digging their toes in signature moves

like Hines as Bojangles.

He said when he knew he was alive

in the world, that his parents were his parents—

when he could talk, he could dance

Over this,

he and Mr. Davis challenge each other

between clouds, calling God inside to check

out the moves man—the moves.

*   *   *   *   *