love song # 1

delicious
unforgettable fruit
promise of
everything under my skin
tip of aorta
base of ventricle
pit of my womb
swimming in my stomach
you,
make me happy.

buried umbilical cord

for a moment
as a hurricane
in your bosom
where forlorn no longer
stretches me
between sleep and nostalgia,
i’d rescind
the very beat
of my circadian

exhale
let my belly go
run wild and unruly
between the rows
of sugar cane
in your demerara.

be the broken portions
of fertile soil on either bank
penetrated deep stroke
beneath the shade of a coconut tree.

O essequibo
drip delicious
the sticky
of spice mangoes
around my lips
and let the cow’s moo be music.

crash violently
into East Flatbush
the currents of kaiteur

still me baby
lull me
bring the rapids
of whitewater
and somehow
siamese mend your hilly sides
to my valleys

switch the once sour
now sweet
of five finger
turned star fruit
preserve
‘cause i yearn
with passion immeasurable
to be home
in your arms.

wash away the petals
of these forget-me-nots
around the temple of my familiar
be my undoing
my becoming
my get it together

O bourda
where are your sweet figs
and sapodillas
for the angostura
swiming in my america?

good god guyana
suction every droplet
in your lamaha canal

bring back
the warmth
that brushed
me cinnamon
in ink
permanent

sibling

She loves him linoleum cold
Blue flame hot
Lost left side shoe found
Right hand close
Heart to soul deep
Continuum with no end
Continuous
Like last night lonely
He’s too far
That-a-way becomes a divide
Too wide to bridge across.

She loves him our song special
More than a man loves his wife
Just like Christ and his church
Lay down your life
Treat you the way I treat me
Unconditional.

She loves him Tom and Jerry silly
on cartoon sunday
like Saltfish and bakes
on breakfast saturday
revolutionary righteous
artistically beautiful
sappodilla sweet
sink your teeth in
snow cone and ice cream
with every day heat
missed on wintry days
and long nights

She loves him pure
Across seas, greater time zones
And tectonic plate shifts
From the same womb
Out of the same piss hole
Comfort in the same boobs
Of that one earth brown woman
they both call mom.

She loves him
The way Renatta
Loves Renee