What I Ask For
an optic nerve of streaking tie-dye 20-20 crystal balls
sudden dawn of a Homeboy in phase with his unfolding religion
I am careful what I ask for
knowing that in my pulsing hungers
I will tap the glass eye of a gimp compass
I will follow crumbs of moldy Wonder Bread to find the vanilla-scented
home of the Sugarcane Priestess
who sweetens my hopeful delirium
She is ancient understands unspoken posture of my need
She is so hip realigns round shoulders of my magic
what if your unrehearsed appearance heralds the age of destination?
what if the unfolding shadows of your cane-cloth wrap the dance to your music
siphons the source of my indigo moods?
what if your accelerated touch
the stroke of silken intelligence
can lance the melancholy hovering over me
since time began?
Copyright © 2022 by Peter J. Harris. This poem appeared in Safe Arms (FlowerSong Press, 2022). Used with permission of the author.
Peter J. Harris
Peter J. Harris is a graduate of Howard University. He is the author of various books, including Safe Arms: 20 Love & Erotic Poems (w/an Ooh Baby Baby moan) (FlowerSong Press, 2022), featuring Spanish translations by Francisco Letelier; SongAgain (Beyond Baroque Books, 2022); Bless the Ashes (Tia Chucha Press, 2014), which won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award; The Black Man of Happiness: In Pursuit of My Unalienable Right (The Black Man of Happiness Project, 2014), winner of the American Book Award; and Hand Me My Griot Clothes: The Autobiography of Junior Baby (Black Classic Press, 1993), winner of the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for multicultural literature. Harris and his daughter, Adenike A. Harris, are contributors to Love WITH Accountability: Digging up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse (AK Press, 2019), edited by Aishah Shahidah Simmons.