Shes Speak
Untying the
muscle noose
braided by
common law
punishment of
difference
with slow
deliberate
licking
lyrics
Breathing
from pens
echoing
over the
Black Atlantic
they are
unfolding
dark
love songs
dying
rainbow
and
foreign
fingers
red
Thick and
changing
chains
linked ripples of
interrupted
but flowing
liquid life
cycles
pooled on
the mouth
of my
source
I came
with a mirror
hoping we’d
both look
and see
but we saw
other faces
that told us
we had to
take the
mercury
left in the
bottom of
a trash bin
seeping out of
21 year old you
to write
Shes speak
refusing to sync
showing that
in close harmony
there is still range
in the same color
shades
and
in touching
both shores
waves
The newspapers
the ones that
count
casualties and
martyr survivors
in printer chimes
have forgotten
your
refusal
to stay
in the lines
You
sit
next to
me
Africa
waiting
ready to speak
as I read
others’ words
of you
looking
past
the notes
on your
face
-Cristina Dominguez
