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DANCING
    i dreamt i was tangoing with
    you, you held me so close
    we were like the singing coming off the drums.
    you made me squeeze muscles
    lean back on the sound
    of corpuscles sliding in blood.
    i heard my thighs singing.

HAIKU
    you ask me to run
    naked in the streets with you
    i am holding your pulse.

SONG
    i cannot stay home
    on this sweet morning
    i must run singing    laughing
    through the streets of Philadelphia.
    i don’t need food or sleep or drink
    on this wild scented day
    i am bathing in the waves of your breath.

HAIKU
    let every breast dance
    a wild sculpture of rain
    i raise my glass.

TANKA
    i don’t know the rules
    anymore i don’t know if
    you say this or not.
    i wake up in the nite
    tasting you on my breath.

HAIKU
    i count the morning
    stars the air so sweet i turn
    riverdark with sound.

HAIKU
    i come from the same
    place i am going to my
    body speaks in tongues.

HAIKU
    i have caught fire from
    your mouth now you want me to
    swallow the ocean.

HAIKU [
for you
]
    love between us is
    speech and breath. loving you is
    a long river running.

POEM
    mornings taking a
    detour from love wide
    assed life spilling starch.

HAIKU
    i await your touch
    come magnify our smell
    make of us a long journey.

HAIKU
    i turn westward in
    shadows hoping my river
    will cross yours in passing.

SONKU
    i collect
    wings what are
    you bird or
    animal?
    something that
    lights on trees
    breasts pawnshops
    i have seen
    another
    path to this
    rendezvous.

BLUES HAIKU
    when we say good-bye
    i want yo tongue inside my
    mouth dancing hello.

BLUES HAIKU
    you too slippery
    for me. can’t hold you long or
    hard. not enough nites.

TANKA
    i thought about you
    the pain of not having
    you cruising my bones.
    no morning saliva smiles this
    frantic fugue about no you.

HAIKU
    hunger comes on morning
    sails. where twilight passes me
    wide is the river.

SONKU
    1.
    i who have
    never moved
    from where i
    was born could
    tell you names
    dates posit
    memory
    when you kid
    napped my blood
    i retired
    into my sex.
    2.
    and i thought
    mountains were
    men but these
    Makonde
    Mountains breasts
    whispering
    spiraling
    sound these wo
    men mountains
    long with curves
    caress    dance
    in a suite
    of heavy thighs
    sweet mountains
    smelling me.

HAIKU
    come windless invader
    i am a carnival of
    stars a poem of blood.

HAIKU
    i am moving in
    air amazon woman bare
    foot thunderbound bells.

HAIKU
[
on passing Toni Cade Bambara’s house
]
    how are we here one
    day gone the next how do we
    run fall down to death?

HAIKU
[
for Bernice
]
    now i move in the
    blood of women who polish
    pores a cappella.

HAIKU
    i cry out for the
    company of women de
    liberate with blood.

HAIKU
    what is done is done
    what is not done is not done
    let it go … like the wind.

BLUES HAIKU
    what i need is traveling
    minds talktouch kisses spittouch
    you swimming upstream.

HAIKU
    old man standing long
    carrying your shanghai years
    like an old rickshaw.

TANKA
    men who watch in the
    night see me coming and yell
    the leper comes the
    leper comes who will feed her
    she without friend or lover.

HAIKU
    it is i who have
    awakened in nakedness
    o cold the morning cock.

TANKA
    this man has sucked too
    many nipples been inside
    too many holes grid
    locked too many skins to
    navigate a blackwomansail.

HAIKU
    i am watersnake
    crossing your long body
    hear me turn in blood.

HAIKU
    i am the ugly
    duckling the second daughter
    eyes shaking like leaves.

HAIKU
    have you ever crossed
    the ocean alone seen the
    morning cough yellow?

HAIKU
    mixed with day and sun
    i crouched in the earth carry
    you like a dark river.

BLUES [
for Deb
]
    even though you came in december be my january man,
    i say, even though you came in december be my january man,
    but you know i’ll take you any month i can.
    woke up this morning, waiting for you to call
    say, i woke up this morning waiting for you to call
    started shaking in my bed, thought i was taking another fall.
    fortune teller, fortune