HOW I FORSEE IT
"leave the lights
on"
--Roz's advice
we
won't hide
from love's
light caress, nor
be afraid
to immerse ourselves
beneath the warm wash
of tongue's touch
on skin's
bare surface
we
know
there are 9 ways
in & 9 ways out,
each buoyed by
its own joy
every encounter
virtually infinite
in variations of
intimacies
both of us laughing
& licking our fingers
across each other big time
bold like children
enthusiastically
transforming page after page
of life's heavy coloring book
as we wield fistfuls
of fat crayons
with no regard
for staying inside the lines
or choosing colors
that correspond
to the way
things usually look
with rebel joy
we assemble our palette
bursting with wild hues
brilliantly combined
to match the unfettered tumble
of our entwined feelings
as our passion runs
its uncharted course,
our pounding blood
is compass & we select direction
with a casual flip of the heart
of course we
are dangerous
the thought police & the
propriety experts undoubtedly
will work overtime
legislating prohibitions
in vain attempts to censor
movements they never imagined
naked humans would make,
socially respectable
professional interior decorators
are suffering serious heart attacks
after visiting the rooms
where we make love, but
who cares? certainly not us,
this is our interior
where we proudly giggle
at purple fingers wet
with body fluids stuck
in orange ears or my green face
kneading your natural dough
in the pliant concave
of your upturned turquoise back
or the way you paint my chest hairs gold
& red with yr breasts as i reach down
between yr legs and pull out
more pigment and you use thick
dollops of paint straight out my tube
on the other hand
i could be miles away
& you're sitting under a dryer
my letter in yr hand, smiling, & where
i am i'm remembering something we shared
& i'm doing like you, smiling
& though apart
we are coming together
love
is
everywhere
###
i wish for us the best
& that the goodness of this out lasts
whatever time each of us has left
on this planet
as you reminded me
this is special / but then
it always is special
when
african americans love
each other
—kalamu ya salaam