A Hymn to Kola Boof

                      By Rudolph Lewis

I’m a sufferer

you, a sufferer

we, a sufferer

ain’t nothing wrong

with being a sufferer

Magic mother, my life began with you

& your stories of African women

in Long Train to the Redeeming Sin

your bronzed uplifted breasts hang

proud luscious melons / suns with black nipples

your passionate love song

calls out & cannot be denied

I honeysuckle flower

my way through your bars,

get down in you,

work my i out of you

there’s bleeding liberation & peace 

at the end of the tunnel, Nilotic Woman

You ain’t no afrocentric wonder,

no media painted Nefertiti or Ethiopian queen

you, a flesh pleasing pushover & ball buster

an Alice Walker, a Grace Jones dynamo

no pale, faint copy of whiteness

you, a big-butt church-rocking fantasia

Nile River goddess, swimming toward me

into my life, you arouse me, awaken

me, viagra naturelle, you rescue me

from snow cold hands

you, a salty Niger woman

you, blue-black as Southern summer nights

shunned by Jesus & Muhammad, smashed

like idols; hidden from view, daring-

cicada eyes, you burrow up to sunlight,

crowning spring trees & blue skies

with a ringing chorus of life & death

Tell me again you love me

let it be me that lay with you

in your volcanic ocean of wonder

I’m a sufferer

you, a sufferer

we, a sufferer

ain’t nothing wrong

with being a sufferer