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on listening to "Yama"
She asked me what the song
did for me
“Be specific” she said
I tell her Lee Morgan
wrote this song
for someone he loved
& let get away
I try to explain to her
how the blues can be
happy
how they can bring
comfort
I try to give words
to how a song can
crawl up inside you
shine a light
on something
forgotten & make it
live again
From Blood/Sound (Central Square Press, 2019). Copyright © 2019 by Fred L. Joiner. Used with the permission of the author.
never thought I
would see it here
in this Otherwhere,
no plantation in sight
no patterned pods
for the picking,
nor calloused hands
to plow & gin
I.
I am losing weight, my mouth
is shrinking, my stomach is now
right-sized for my eyes
I have seen where everything goes
to die, things the earth cannot swallow
cannot return to dust
litter is landscape
& only unusable burns
after the harmattan has emptied his last
gasp & wheeze, & we have shaken loose his dust
from our bodies & found shelter
from the Sahel’s certain heat,
when the water returns & the river is high,
this bit of sun bittered earth becomes a stage, a show