Afrobeat Journal Issue 2 : Spring 2011

by Ana-Maurine Lara

gingko yellow leaves
a pond
your landscape
is ruddy and warm
your heart’s…
(your feet have been cold)
I see
gingko yellow
a pond
some tattoos
the edges of you –
maple red
ever green green
(a silver edge it is)
gingko yellow
you

winter light
full moon tattoo
(graffiti tags)
cloudy sky blue
split swollen granite
rusty metal rail ties
whispering brush
orange burst berries
lightning-split tree trunks
elements of you
gentle edges
roughly-hued wood
graffiti spelling
“sage”
worn brick red
all this is true.

now.
for irmary

the hollow between
the sharp of teeth

the yielding of tongue

the shift of feet
amid ruffled sheets

a murmur of breath
before the dance of sleep

dusk surrenders to indigo

the day giving way
to time

the night giving way
to timelessness

dreaming feels like

the sway of reeds
along a sea-side road

the ripple of stone
dancing on the water

Ten Things I Can’t Live Without
For D’Lo

1. It’s two a.m. and we’ve been talking for hours now. I’m falling asleep but I know that it’s my strength you’re counting on. Because that’s what we have: each other’s strength. So, I turn on one more lamp in my winter dark bedroom, sit up against the wall, press the phone closer to my ear.

2. I developed thick calluses on my heels when I was only ten years old. Years later, I learned that calluses block chi. Years later, I learned that calluses are important. I like to walk barefoot on beaches, on grass, in mud. To feel my heels soften against the earth.

3. A poem is breath between letters, cadence, song, lyric, verse. Regardless of shape or form, I cannot live without poetry.

4. Chocolate.

5. As kids my brothers and I used to tell the joke over and over again. The one about the turtle crossing the road. Over and over, we’d burst into fits of laughter before even finishing the question. Why [laughter] did the turtle [laughter] cross [laughter] the road? [laughter] [laughter] [laughter]

6. The secrets locked inside our bodies. My own and hers.

7. Dancing is each step a mark on soil undone by other marks on soil, arms closer to the moon, feet among stars, a breath drawn from the depths of mirrors, up through eternity, waiting for dawn.

8. Because I was born on an island. Because when I was six months old, the water’s pulse was stronger than my own. Because it’s where we come from. Because of that fan coral I once saw. Because the color blue out there among the reefs still makes me cry. Because of all those dreams in which I live along its depths.

9. Beauty: Abandoned train yards in winter. Fields of bluebonnets and paintbrush. Lagoons, rivers, waterfalls. Beauty: Dawn. Dusk. Dragonflies. Deserts. Dew. Beauty: The sun on rocks. A golden forest. Deer. Beauty: lives just under my skin, makes my blood slow, makes me cry.

10. Each time you ask me about my life and I get to tell you a story. Something about adventures. Something about life, and near misses. What I ate and the way the flavors shaped themselves around my tongue. The things I’ve seen/heard/tasted/smelled which I share with you in any way I can just so that I really see/hear/taste and smell them. When you ask, and I get to tell you. I’m Here. Right here. Where I’ve always been. Right here next to you.

February 16, 2011
9.40pm
New Haven, CT
The Ontology of Us
~for i.r.s.

1. Coral
Full moon, a night breeze
brushes the water’s skin
into pools of light.
Tonight the deep tides turn;
the reefs call in the elders.
Bones akin to budded branches,
dance over ancestors’
rendered remains:
sand against our toes, sand:
where we dance.

2. Amethyst
Shadows carress the field,
bent stalks repose
against the passing wind.
Along the hem of flowers
you walk. A curl of your hair
catches on a stem
of blossoms
and for one boundless moment
earth and sky are one.

3. Between
amorphous nebulous shapeless unformed undefined
becoming growing emerging inclining transforming
beautiful graceful congruous worthy
a sum of parts
a luminous field
fecund waters
a jump a leap a jive a strut a whirl

Who is Ana-Maurine Lara?

Ana-Maurine Lara
Ana-Maurine Lara is an award-winning novelist and poet. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in numerous literary journals including Sable LitMag and Callaloo, among others. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and is currently working on a PhD in African American Studies and Anthropology at Yale University.