for Nana (CKO)

The pull of its yellowing leaves,

marking the beginning of destruction.

What cruel month, November—

With its early nights & cold beds.

Into the dawn, I will complain again

About the cold in Orange. You will

Read the weather: That's not cold,

Compared with Columbia.

In a passport, it is written—

The cold everywhere will lead me home.

On a headboard, it is written—

Here, under the lampstand, lies the bust of love. 

Hear me, beloved—

Wherever our bodies make a song,

We will call home;

And if my fingers feel cold again,

In Maryland’s breeze, I will rest them

near the radiator before touching you.

Ode to K. Frimpong

It is the riffs of your guitar,

how they are carried through the wind—

it is as if you built a country

and that was your flag

undulating.

Drums rising with my breath

and falling with the trumpet.

Who stole your lover, K?

And stepped on your toes.

Your pain is a river soiled by greedy men

It is your gold they want, K—

and they lured you with all the greens

as if they were a branch

to sit under for shade.

They have done all they can

so you fall and break like

Ananse’s gourd fell off his back.

I have no money to offer you—

but I wish you a love that does leave

for money—it could be a tree,

a river, a song to sing, or a road

you must walk. I, too, sing with you.

Fissure

It is the thing with guests at the table—

unsatisfied, yet concerned they might

be overstaying.

Each side of a door is a border—

and I don’t have the right papers

to cross over. To enter the new year,

I must lay on the altar, an offering.

Flesh, fat enough to smoke through the

heavens, lean enough to be appealing

to the chef. No blemish.

What I know is that a debt

in your father’s name is your inheritance.

In your mother’s, your invitation

to the conference of recovering sons.

I am leaving robes around—

when I fall through, I can make a bed

or string my way up.

But there is a desert on each

side and no stump to tether.

I have walked far enough into the prairie

to need finding. In the dream, it is a lake.

I fall into it. Were it not for my baptism,

my head would be forbidden from

going underwater. A lake symbolizes

stagnation. A river, movement—

turmoil, looking for a thicket

to grab onto, against the rapids.