my lips, her palm
why do men look
at women with an impossible longing
to possess any body found attractive
i have watched a woman raise her knee
another’s breast revealed when she bent over
or just the intense magnet of a smile
while casually talking on the phone,
nia’s sleeping form as i lean across
to tell her i am going, there is no need for porn
magazines in my life
the world is too full of real women and a wife
who tells me it was so romantic how—after
she tripped on the gravel road—i sucked
the dirted blood from the wound on her hand
—kalamu ya salaam