the tenants who
came before
marauded this temple
you so keenly
worship.
so how do I let you in
without mistrust,

even though you claim
to be
      'a permanent resident'

the stories of women you write sonnets upon , or the ones on caricatures
i consume.
they're all fiction to me.

for the women i know are all looking out the window, wandering into endless abyss.
or waiting on tiptoes - to be tied down
in the bonds of 'holy' matrimony.
when they were young,
living on dictums of
father and brothers was an
unspoken, but frequently
enforced trend.
now no longer lean saplings, (who could be stomped upon with ease)
but sprawling, majestic trees
with branches chartering territories
that remain  forbidden  for the tree.
their offshoots
are sheared (for they can't be crushed with ease)
in the name of honour.
to ebb out all the figments of
rebellion, the tree
might hold in it's gamut.
still tamed in the garden,
a new gardener comes in place.
a slightly younger one, who
comes with his own tenets.
restraining her with a
strap, in the name of modesty.
he satiates himself by strangling
last shreds of revolt
her father couldn't slay.
the woman is caged in bars of shame,
all in the name of  honour.
yet again.
why is it that the women i know only lessen with age?
but the men smirk upon,only inflating their slyness. as the years grow on them.

Shakespeare, gazing into a waning sky,
said that her eyes were nothing like the sun.
Collins, picking fruit from trees, said that she
is not the purple wind in the orchard.

To follow this long trend of un-blazoned
poetry, I want to share with the world
that you are not the Charlie Parker jazz
jumping from the mouth of a black Phillips

radio, nor are you the paper that I
am writing this first draft on, nor
the morning coordinate geometry
that puzzled me today (or maybe you

are). Even more so, you are not the moon-
light staining trees, the stack of 18th
century British literature in the study,
your grandmother’s painting in the dining

room. Nonetheless, you are you: masterful,
opinionated, understanding; a
beloved whose beauty is better left
unmentioned in some new age poetry.

It was Freddie Hubbard on the trumpet
blowing on about some blue moon,
as if the yellow one that has occupied
the night and sometimes morning sky
wasn’t enough, when I decided to write
a poem about thinking about tomorrow.

How I will rise before the rest, run a few
miles on a treadmill overlooking a busy
boulevard and read the private memoirs
of a justified sinner. And when the tomorrow
that I was thinking about comes with its new
minutes and hours, its new obstacles and

headaches, I will think back to today
and remember the morning kiss you gave,
the silence between your body and mine,
the amount of times you changed your outfit
before the lake, the museum: the live dances
from cultures around the world that kept us from

viewing new installments, the interracial ballet
dancers tip-toeing to a tune well-known to childhood
ears. But the one memory of yesterday that will be
with me until death do us part will not be of the
Shakespeare that I read nor of the raspberry
cheesecake we shared but of you: sitting alone,

waist-deep in a bubble bath. ******* pert and
motherly exposed. Resting comfortably above
your ribcage. Showing more beauty than age.
A glass of cabernet sitting where the razors and
shampoo usually sat. A young adult novel in the
white palms your small hands. But yes. The one

memory that will be with me until death do us
part and well, even after that, will be of me looking
at you: naked in a tub, your glasses over the bridge
but on the edge of your nose, and the rest of my life

before me.

There are a lot of words out there and the day that I reached out
with a warm autumn coffee and pumpkin scone in my hands

I realized that Merriam-Webster could not help me, that the
O.E.D could not help me, that trying to find the perfect words

to describe your bundled spirit of simplicity and truth, of
imperfection and loveliness would take centuries. By the end

of my reaching I realized that my arms had grown tired, had
fallen to my hips and hung there like a forgotten thought

in the mind, that my spiced coffee and frosted scone had spilled
a wonderful orange across the pen and tablet of my heart.

After years of attempting this craft, I still didn’t get it.
I read it walking to class during undergrad. Back when
Roethke described how nothing would succumb to death,
not even dirt. But in time, I learned that it is a mere calling

of truth. A slight manipulation of memories. A close reading
of a scene where nothing really happens. A hillside of purple
orchards shaking in the wind, then resting its petals against
the earth. I learned that it is a foggy window seat in time

catching the first leaf of autumn connect to wet pavement
or catching two strangers, after a long day, undisturbed,
quietly ******* in the privacy of their home, smiling
at one another for reasons the world will never know.

Your mistakes
and imperfections

the lines around
your eyes - small

miracles, little
biographical proofs

of your timely
existence.

After the 24th revolution of the longhand
on the clock, the radio plays bossa nova jazz
all night and me, I sit awake in an empty
studio replaying the day in my head as I

row alone across the lake of my notebook
as some now-deceased artist sings about
a 17-year old girl living on Montenegro St.
as beads of moonlight drip from the blade

of the paddle back into the lake as my arms
push and pull and push and pause mid-row
to catch the rhythm and blues of solitude.

Dream works; Lion King
Simba talks to Mufasa.
That's when I pulled my pants up, and started fixing my posture.
Then looked up above.
I struggle with love.
Struggle with hate.
Hard to debate.
Leave and change when I fall But I still wanna participate.

22 in 10 days.
Turning 22, in 10 different ways
A different shade.
A midnight black, to a faded gray.
I opened this chapter.
Dressed for the rapture.
Run and tell master.
While they're telling Ima take it all to the pastor.
Or am I dreaming?
Wake up Wake up.
Time to break up, from the shake up.
Don't let em see you down,
Get dressed,
And put on make up.
I'm evolving.
Starving like Marvin.
Sky is still calling
My name ain't Jim Jones, but one day I'll be ballin'.

Will I give back?
No looking back.
Dashing that.
Getting older now; getting bigger, steady hungry trying to pick up the pieces.
Pledge of allegiance to the money now.
Now and forever.
Finesse, but I'm still not that clever.
One day I'll be; probably never.

And nowadays 22 is still declared young.
But that won't change me from growing, I won't settle for none.
Nowadays 22 can feel old or feel young.
With these 10 days left I know it's better to come.

You were fourteen in Dr. A.’s class
when on that day you proclaimed
to have learned nothing and on that
day Dr. A. held no doctorate degree.

You were fourteen in Dr. A.’s class
when bodies: sick, overweight, in-shape
fell from buildings and into to TV screens
into history books, only to be stuck forever

in a New York newsreel in their Tuesday
outfits with Monday night’s love and touch
brewing, aged and earthy, from their falling
lives. If you listen closely on the eve of this day

the wind still whispers their scent of perfume
trails, still whispers what really happened
that busy day in the clouds, in the sky.
I was ten and can’t recall where I was

or in whose company but like the waters
stretched between Europe, Africa, and the
America’s, I was (am) far removed, was (am)
still putting together the blue-black lineage

of my triangular history that drowned
in the salty waters stretched, flowing
between three continents. But fifteen
years later, we (you and I) have overcome

the billowing black clouds of Tuesdays
the Monday night upsets, and the routed
maritime of our ancestors. 15 years later
you are still alive with your blue eyes

and clear face, are still four years my senior
are still my guiding light and sight of sun.