Who hears the humming 
of rocks at great height, 
the long steady drone
of granite holding together, 
the strumming of obsidian 
to itself? I go among 
the stones stooping 
and pecking like a 
sparrow, imagining
the glacier’s final push 
resounding still. In 
a freezing mountain 
stream, my hand opens 
scratched and raw and 
flutters strangely, 
more like an animal 
or wild blossom in wind 
than any part of me. Great 
fields of stone 
stretching away under 
a slate sky, their single 
flower the flower 
of my right hand. 
                              Last night
the fire died into itself 
black stick by stick 
and the dark came out 
of my eyes flooding 
everything. I 
slept alone and dreamed 
of you in an old house 
back home among 
your country people,
among the dead, not 
any living one besides 
yourself. I woke 
scared by the gasping 
of a wild one, scared 
by my own breath, and 
slowly calmed 
remembering your weight 
beside me all these 
years, and here and 
there an eye of stone 
gleamed with the warm light 
of an absent star. 
                               Today
in this high clear room 
of the world, I squat 
to the life of rocks 
jewelled in the stream 
or whispering 
like shards. What fears 
are still held locked 
in the veins till the last 
fire, and who will calm 
us then under a gold sky 
that will be all of earth? 
Two miles below on the burning 
summer plains, you go 
about your life one 
more day. I give you 
almond blossoms 
for your hair, your hair 
that will be white, I give 
the world my worn-out breath 
on an old tune, I give 
it all I have 
and take it back again.

The super worked all day
as a conductor on the subway
and in the evenings as a dominatrix.
She lived above me. I heard a mix
of pain and pleasure—impossible
to tell the difference in that studio full
of my own silence. On the front stoop
I ran into her clients, who drooped
in exhausted gratitude.
Once, I knocked.

                              When she cracked
the door I could see she’d been crying.
Behind her, a TV blued
the room; something was frying
on the stove. I had a small concern.
She told me, I’ll get to you in turn.

^{—after “The Color Purple”}

Somebody call the law— 

For the way Shug leans in for the kiss 
after listening to Miss Celie’s long suffering. 
For what begins as Shug’s prompting Miss Celie 
to Shake yo’ shimmy girl! Show me yo stuff! 
Miss Celie’s smile hidden behind two balled 
and stoney fists that Shug holds down against a sea 
of red sequin, then the spread of Miss Celie’s teeth 
like the good earth opening into a field of Cosmos wild
and wide before the eye as laughter cascades from her mouth 
like a fit of trumpet and trombones sounding on any 
God-given night outta Harpo’s.

It was as lawless then as it is now, 
two Black women finding the lover 
in one another, having endured the force 
ful nature of men and separation from all 
they loved, including their own children. 
Black women finding exception in one another. 
It was the grace in Shug’s caress that held my 
prepubescent breath, followed by Miss Celie turning 
her cheek for another peck. Their language of touch that 
left my body ringing then, what leaves me wrung out still. 
No longer a child, but grown and experienced 
in my own lone episodes of longing— 
I knows what it like 
when your body want to sing 
but can’t— 
to have a little help along the way 
to have someone like honey 
to be two bodies buzzing like bees.