giving the one who left
the benefit of the doubt
"i always leave
while love is aching good
running home
to get it good
don't answer the phone
ain't seen your people
in forty-seven days
& don't miss them good
since i know
it's going to turn bad
& spoil because
ultimately everything does
disintegrates to the dust of unhappiness
and i so despise death scenes so why
should i stick around and await
the inevitability of us looking crosseyed
at each other -- why not just jet
one morning after a momentous fuck
get hat and have the beauty of that
always simmering in the flesh memory
of our passion patinaed body cells?
i am like a plucked guitar string, a strand
of lucille's vibrant hair, when i weep i feel
better -- & i'm fully aware
you will never understand
the utter logic of shoving red hot love
into the cold water of been here and gone
unless you too have hurriedly left a lover
but never ever even once stopped loving them"
—kalamu ya salaam