Cape Verdean Blues Read online

  Somewhere there’s a baby on the line. I want to be careful with what comes next. Your face still a strange place I visit when I need an alley to watch my back in. A baby on the line. Not a kitchen restaurant line getting dressed fermented rhubarb sitting quietly. The kind of line two people create when only one wants to stay. In the park where I loved you publicly now stands a little man pounding two drums led by an elder. For dinner, I’ll kiss the baby’s body before freezing. Dead as in not here yet. Dead as in not my baby. This is not a lesson in frozen dinners. It’s asking myself to stop investigating your personal life. Drums were certainly made for you. They make all that noise. They don’t ask questions.

  THIS WON’T MAKE SENSE IN ENGLISH

  pasada [pasu] n. step; ~ di ómi, grasa-l mudjer, short visit; badja ~, dance the pasada dance

  Your freckles wholesome your steps leading me I am sucking my stomach in as much as I can this dance leading me into nights full of you full in you full off you fueled up can you pull my dress down for me can you feel this dance leading us to the end of the night I already need a ride home already nostalgic about the crooked space between your teeth countless points of contact we’re holding each other like this short visit is the definition of consumption

  STROLOGY LEO

  Fireworks start in June. You will take them for gunshots if you haven’t heard a pistol go off uncomfortably close to your head. If you haven’t heard a group of boys ride by your house and there! Three bullets. First last and security. Leo, shower before your roommates. Hot water rare as someone when you need them most. A grateful heart shall not despair. On the 14th day of this month, the door will weep behind you. You are more than the walls men rap about. Greater than the walls that managed not to collapse in high school, walls that got higher in college. Walls, easy enough, keep men in a job line. Welfare line. Funeral line. Touching the weep, the ceiling will play the trombone. The floor beneath you will dance.

  BIG SUN COMING STRONG THROUGH THE MOTEL BLINDS

  Before you closed the blinds

  on our first morning together

  you left me naked under a Haitian

  quilt. This was not the time I waited

  for you in a black tulle dress

  and nothing else. Tulle against

  my ass against my thighs

  against everything I thought I was.

  This is what a wife would do,

  you note. By this time,

  you had already touched me well.

  You’re a different kind of professional.

  There are technical terms for what

  I’m doing except I left my big words

  at home. Except I wanted light

  to come through the blinds.

  What makes this complicated

  to detail is how special my body

  felt to be chosen by you.

  What a fading place of grace

  for false exploration. Is it truly

  an honor to please a man who

  doesn’t know that being stalked

  means the number of hotel cookies

  I ate while waiting for him is on record.

  What an honor to please a man

  who doesn’t know,

  that wanting to mourn secretly,

  is the same as doing it.

  GPS

  says there’s a Duane Reade a mile from Chinatown. It’s 96 degrees on a Saturday. My legs are wet. Sweat stings my contact lenses. I’m coming for you. The taxi driver is West African. You are my sister, he says. I’m changing my bra, my shirt, in the backseat, while he keeps his eyes on the Lincoln Tunnel and his thoughts on women who are slaves to their men. I stare at his name and badge number and wonder what his wife in Africa looks like. I wanted to ask what his American woman looks like. A lot of time passes and I think about my old West African lover and feel bad for being so American. Be more like your father’s side; he’s so involved we get lost. I get to you. My hair the size of my hips. I awkwardly tell you I like your t-shirt. You say It’s just a grey t-shirt. You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. Only the sun has come this close, only the sun.

  THIS WON’T MAKE SENSE IN ENGLISH

  banhâ v. take a bath; surround

  banhera n. bathtub; tub

  banhóka n. sweet bath

  banhu n. bath; swim; tuma ~, take a bath, take a shower

  banu n. wave; oscillation

  What a waste of energy riding an elevator alone one more person’ll make it worth it sinking comes in two the howling then the tombstones buried in snow the only little marker from home if you’ve got bad energy take a dip at the beach sea salt’ll bring you right back to the time you were so happy you inboxed your tub sudded body for a Hollywood star

  STROLOGY TAURUS

  Be a bird this month. Be built in speakers. When you find your honey eclipsed behind licorice lips, wisdom body yourself into a feverish chant. Remember when you used to be so mad at Biggie for killing Tupac. Turn that storyless scar into a symphony. He’s so new; you love when he calls you names. When you don’t know how he could live outside of you. When rich black ain’t less black. Be the exotic accent, over the e, fuck like one of those neon signs that flinch. Shoulders make ceilings tangible. Be alluring when you break. You are a furnished room. You mourn persons unknown. You belt out dear mamas wrapped in rap. You are more than body goals. Your wisdom body is mounted at the tips of praying hands. Your wisdom body will trump the trauma. Be a bird this month. Be turned on by your own energy. The only cure for this hangover is you.

  THERE’S SOMETHING SO DEEPLY GRATIFYING ABOUT WELCOMING YOUR MOTHER INTO YOUR HOME AND OFFERING HER A MEAL AS NOURISHMENT AND THANKS

  When small introduces itself as a dirty word

  I contemplate how to put food down.

  Each early morning at 4:17 a.m.

  an operating system restores

  its warless ocean of information.

  Within hours following deletion

  I wake with less interest

  than having slept with. I forget

  the flavor of your peroxide mouth after

  hours of Facetime. Your beard

  requires a search engine

  of its own. I search for me too.

  Using altered keystrokes like am I

  really the baby my mother carried drunk?

  Am I the operating system? Am I hungry?

  While at dinner being fucked

  crawled into my mind. Hula-hooping

  wine glasses. My mom needs to know

  that it’s okay to take your socks off

  at the beach. The idea of feeling a delight

  not associated with fried shellfish is

  a thing to feel. But now

  I’m thinking about our weight.

  There are no women with our bodies on TV.

  AND I KNOW THAT SHE FEELS BEAUTIFUL—DO WE HAVE CANCER

  We talked at length about her cervix and her decision to no longer perm her hair. A woman at the Cape Verdean salon in Roxbury told her, You are more beautiful with long black hair. I told her they’re bitches, even though they’re my people. I stared at her curly Sierra Leone sunset. She said when she takes a bath she can feel where they’ve cut. We have a lot in common, although I have not felt my own. Fingers move my unsettled hair around to hide the bald spots. She said we look alike when we met for lunch today. The pain is back and I feel underdressed. A wave of bare elbows digging trenches in the tabletops.

  STROLOGY AQUARIUS

  Wake up, let the Internet comfort you in its lazy web. Ask Mother Google about wildfires. She will moan, The fire will pass before your house burns down. No one’s thinking about you. The ringing in your ear is sirens. Begin your departure by brushing yourself against the shower wall until you; you start to fall from the clinging. Repeat. Like rituals to make you beautiful (lemon water in the morning). Rituals to make you pleasant (therapy). Say you stay, know that you still have time to build yourself of what the rich want. Chase the rule of th
e road, the rules of your house. Be the boat in the water, the bridge lifting its arms making way for the things you carry. You can even be a car this month, Aquarius. Speed across frantic flames; let the Internet break itself in your rich wet presence.

  31-YEAR-OLD LOVER

  Draped in a Malibu mansion

  dressed in my aunt’s blonde wig

  and her long, black suede coat,

  I wanted to be Lil’ Kim.

  If I had to name myself, my name

  would be on every corner, meaning the promise

  of plenty, like the abundance of stores

  selling blonde Barbies and boy toy

  soldiers who could use a break.

  The moment news from afar approaches the rim

  of my callous glass of Cab, my name

  would already be your fragile song

  crushed under the weight of encounter,

  as you found me crushed under the weight of a car.

  Drunk on provocative statements, I was still alive

  when I reached for you, how you turned away,

  how you glazed past me, demanding I let go.

  Only some know when it’s time to chill.

  If I had to name myself, it would be hardcore.

  Kim’s legs wide open. Hardcore

  like how you won’t learn to drive

  a car that’d play Gil Scott-Heron

  for you. Hardcore

  like how I’ve hardly been

  sleeping without you.

  SIMONE

  with her big knees ballerina skirt. Imagined her in this church the ink on the back of her hands fading falling down her raised arms her mouth slightly whispering to her most high. How we’d look in a photograph. How I’d look to myself to our friends loved ones smiling how we’d look together. Wide knees and thighs glasses dolling tints of blue her hair taking comfort around one shoulder. The end of class brings Simone close to me. A man I don’t know lifts her attention I walk away hungry then stop rustle in my bag watch them talk. Each day feels like a phone call a sound with good news a promise to return with more information. Imagined making love to her not knowing where to begin.

  YOUR EYES BLINK FIVE-MINUTE MILES

  Knot by knot I pulled my hair

  out on the ferry. Who knows what

  these arms are doing above my head.

  I would lick my own face

  to taste the sea. I would take

  your bulbs for their brightness. People

  who enjoy life make me uncomfortable.

  How could you love the quarry so but sleep

  gripping your own button down shirt

  for freedom? My hair was playing

  the thorn to your eyes as our ears

  our ears mistook wind in the trees for the ocean.

  STROLOGY PISCES

  It’s profoundly normal to become fragile while ordering coffee. The barista wants your money. The barista wants your name. Say his, while pretending to look for change. Against your tongue is the only direction he goes. Say his name, and then say yours. This week, imagine trying to have a body and a break. Open legs come easy, but that’s not grief. Grief is the patch of hair you find on your thighs as you walk out of the coffee shop and head toward the disco in high waisted shorts. The key to monogamy is dancing. Allow his name to teach you what you taught him. On the blackest night, tame the madness by losing your face inside another woman. What you long for and desire inside of your home has everything and nothing to do with what goes on outside. When you get back to the party, make sure you know what you’re partying for.

  YOU WILL, INDEED, ALWAYS BE THE SAME PERSON AFTER VACATION

  Mexican tacos in Paris

  look like thick rolled cigars,

  if cigars had meat inside.

  They dance Bachata.

  Their feet move in confusion.

  The sirens here remind me

  of a wretchedness

  I cannot place,

  maybe something I heard

  in a book. European unrest

  over deboned white fish.

  In Le Marais, I told a Canadian

  from Morocco, here lies a chef.

  I felt his fingers tremble

  as he felt my palms for shucking oysters.

  Nothing in its right place

  but there we were

  walking in the time of Daguerre

  on water with our hands

  on the mouths of our purses.

  Go to Paris. Let it change you.

  When you arrive back

  warily on a buddy pass,

  you say you are not easily impressed.

  In the Seine of truth, you are easily

  lonely

  at the Eiffel,

  in the Louvre, you smile

  with a nose your father called big.

  Into the camera you go,

  your thrown self

  in front of Mona Lisa.

  AFTER FINDING A HAIR IN MY FOOD AT ROXBURY’S FIRST GENTRIFIED CAFÉ

  I didn’t want my money back.

  Of course I want my money

  back. I tell my kids, Ask for

  what you want. Speak up.

  Use your words. Want. There’s

  a strand of hair in my food

  and my hair ain’t that straight.

  That’s what I said. I said

  let’s try again. I want fingers

  in my mouth. I love the worst

  city beach. My body been

  made like steel, black like

  the gun I found in my cousin’s

  Timberland bag. I was terrified

  to touch. If I knew what I

  know, that I’d be showing up

  to the party smelling like

  yellow rice and bacalhau,

  like yesterday’s coffee, I

  would have touched it, his gun.

  Having your life together is

  the shell casing in this poem.

  Don’t think: Your body will

  ever be yours. Though last

  night I touched myself, green

  garlic on my tongue, spiced

  Goya in my veins.

  STROLOGY CAPRICORN

  When the rain stops, go to the top of the royal fortress not far from the two towering churches to see the scenery and smell the damp of the earth your knees will dig into later tonight. Go to her house. Experience her at breakfast. Your blouse and hair will get caught in the rain that turns the yard, all of the city green. Chat with her father about corn crops. Tell him you are the woman he’s expecting to show up with fertilizer for all the farmers growing produce typically not found in the old city. When you arrive, ask her to take you over the base of it. Go to steal the fennel head, to see her barefoot, to gather enough of her to do business with.

  BLOSSOM

  The deal with being struck by lightning is there are no deals

  for the lonely hearted.

  No deal when I said I love you too to my lover of three weeks.

  I miss my cat, even he doesn’t belong to me.

  On the Vineyard women appear in the living rooms of white

  fenced homes.

  They all look the same. They all shout come inside me

  to the only room on the bottom floor.

  My lover would be jealous if he knew the way I touched

  women.

  All shoulders taste of potential. All lashes close doors for me.

  I know losing involves lying

  on the ground trying to lift myself up. Had I accepted the

  bottom floor

  lightning could not have flowed through this silent carpel as a

  blossom.

  Flowers travel only when I carry them. I am the most attractive

  flower

  when I’m standing alone next to everything.

  NOT CRAZY JUST AFRAID TO ASK

  if she had a baby born with an addiction.

  Need I’ve learned, is one of those months


  when I am not lonely it’s just that April

  is the cruelest month.

  I’m not lonely

  it’s the wind blowing back grateful

  blowing forth complacent. Fortune says

  I’m not crazy

  just one of those people who can walk

  in the house walk right by the dog.

  Learned a long time ago that swearing

  on God when lying

  won’t kill my mother won’t kill

  the neighborhood boys. Nothing

  special about this year is the truth.

  But the sun

  is out today cars are being cared for

  in a novelty phase sort of way.

  The dogs ’round here walk their men

  up and down the dead grass still

  blooming in the year

  I must be wrong about.

  STROLOGY LIBRA

  The second week of the first month with her name strepped on your throat, meet her at your favorite store. Just don’t meet her halfway. You will need a map but no directions. Libra, you will never meet her. This week, get to know her acumen. Shout the answers without her asking. She will never ask. Be innocent until the day comes. Let spiders live, let your fears jaywalk across your chest. This week, today, your ears will get hot at the cut of her teeth when you tell her you already have someone. Pretend where you’ll first meet is not a waste of a great city. The city you will ask to pick her up in. She will ask you, Where? & you will type, In the air. The second week of the first month with her name strepped on your throat, study every comment on every photo. Pretend she is not a waste of a great city. Though she makes you feel like a God, do not forget she is not the one to leave home for. She is a practice. Smile while her tongue hangs above you like a wind chime. Blow. Blow. Bow. Libra, she is a ritual. You’re trembling. Fall asleep like you mean it. Like it’s late night after the raspberry pie your girlfriend will make in your mom’s house. Fall asleep like you mean it—go to sleep with her profile open.