I have waited all my life to find me find you
perched around my black neck in repose
songing of me in repose your black legs
songing of me in repose
your black legs a dangle around me I have waited
to find you find your black toes to find them
sundering at the base your black toes your black toe-
nails hale and bright your black feet a straddle around me
around my black waist a straddle I finding I
was born I was born who operated
in the white was born who was born
who operated in the white chapel
who found your black thighs in repose
songing to each other in repose
across
my chest an extended black for blocks
a neighborhood song in repose
your crotch an extended black
at my neck your black groin a straddle
around me in repose what life what
there it is there I had been looked at
there o lord sucked His black
thorax which spanned as a fracture
spanned as I
who grow up in you there as a fracture find
your black breast o lord quiescing
atop my head your other black
breast o lord hale and bright around me o lord
a pendulum o lord to my black ear
my black ear that finds you songing
of me in repose in your stature
toppling to one side of my one side
find your black shoulders a gaping
around me death your body armless
around me death none can
skirt it in your mother's way o lord
is finding black fingers there your black
neck is finding lord is rising past
the cumulus-line an extended black
o lord is an extended black o lord
is thinking of self and thinking of self is
finding you there so that when I entered I entered
the pulpit I entered.
Copyright © 2018 by Anaïs Duplan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 23, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets