This is not a small voice
you hear               this is a large
voice coming out of these cities.
This is the voice of LaTanya.
Kadesha. Shaniqua. This
is the voice of Antoine.
Darryl. Shaquille.
Running over waters
navigating the hallways
of our schools spilling out
on the corners of our cities and
no epitaphs spill out of their river mouths.

This is not a small love
you hear               this is a large
love, a passion for kissing learning
on its face.
This is a love that crowns the feet with hands
that nourishes, conceives, feels the water sails
mends the children,
folds them inside our history where they
toast more than the flesh
where they suck the bones of the alphabet
and spit out closed vowels.
This is a love colored with iron and lace.
This is a love initialed Black Genius.

This is not a small voice
you hear.

^{(for Emmett Louis Till)}

1.
Your limbs buried
in northern muscle carry
their own heartbeat

2.
Mississippi ...
alert with
conjugated pain

3.
young Chicago
stutterer whistling
more than flesh

4.
your pores
wild stars embracing
southern eyes

5.
footprints blooming
in the night remember
your blood

6.
in this southern
classroom summer settles
into winter

7.
i hear your
pulse swallowing
neglected light

8.
your limbs
fly off the ground
little birds ...

9.
we taste the
blood ritual of
southern hands

10.
blue midnite
breaths sailing on
smiling tongues

11.
say no words
time is collapsing
in the woods

12.
a mother’s eyes
remembering a cradle
pray out loud

13.
walking in Mississippi
i hold the stars
between my teeth

14.
your death
a blues, i could not
drink away.