Requiem for L
Days of wine and roses
Were never a part of my twenty-four
Except once.
Understanding my need to sip and sniff,
He brought me Ethiopian honey wine
And Somali Rose incense.
Understanding his need to not return
to breaking his mother’s back,
I stood on oak-peopled corners
And entreated first wonders
To catch the aroma of Afrika.
One hundred and thirty two moons
Beyond my winter after the summer of love birth,
He was my alpha.
Joyfully submitting, I laid under him
Matching him movement for movement.
My lips curved in a half moon when he said,
Sis, they told you wrong, you can dance.
I loved him so much I kissed him to the point
I was able to laughingly two-step embarrassment
When my sister, known as Semi-Love, said
I heard you two smacking lips in the kitchen.
He was the beginning of my womanhood
But I didn’t know I was the end of his manhood
Until my allegiance to my then prison-bound husband
Made me say good-bye.
Several copper-wire conversations later,
There was so much sorrow in his voice
When he said, if I knew you wanted to be
A married woman, I would’ve married you.
Devoid of my essence, he took a header off
Off a rickety staircase. I didn’t believe anything
Anybody told me, thinking it was a ploy
to get me to focus on my husband
Until I called his long-time sister friend.
She heard me say my name and went silent
And I knew…my alpha was dead.
Grief is perennial. It walks with me daily.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
