through pulp you say hyssop wipe your lips, sated
peer over my shoulder & breathe Yes
into the rose-damp dawn
o cuffs his shirtsleeves
dons a faux pout, plants a peck on your waiting jaw & fades,
sfumato, into the closet dark
& it came to pass that when o left, i dreamt you fucked me to completion, sighing
blessed are the children of the fallowed earth
for they shall see God
& lo when you stared & o dressed & i tossed in my half-waking sleep
i heard you piss in the shower
though i did not let on
on the days when o appears in rearview, i see you as though through an x-ray.
this morning your bulk is a pile of blank space
your bravery?
{ vanished }
revealing a trail of porcelain bones
your eggshell opalescent chalk-white bones ; your cup-a-day-keeps-the-doctor-away
teeth bones hair
anyway
in the peakid sunlight sneaking in through the blinds you look frail
is all i’m saying
o rides, palm-flanked, into the city wearing his tumbledown robes
you are there as you are always waving a frond
this time i do not drown the city in sorrow
this time your smooth hands deliver me to a cotton calm where i do not sink, gasping,
into a river of sheets but am risen your mouth spilling Yes
my cup overrun
at the mouth of the river, God spake:
swaddle the babe, girl—float him, piscine, upslope
& although his seed shall split its husk on the passage
shall fall to the oceans and die
verily shall his line be exalted
& the word was with God then as it is always.
& the word was God.
neva heard silent night over a beat til the braai
but niggas will juke to anything these days
my barber jokes half-drunk, swaying, staring into the first quarter moonlight
where his silhouette curves out of frame
his folks came from the cape during apartheid,
cheekbones are cut gems refracting the shop’s fluorescents
i shall deliver my young to the scripture,
shall hold these truths to be axiomatic,
shall sup of your blood & my laugh shall be gay
(as it is always)
i tip the man. nod. pocket my change.
Jabulile Mickle-Molefe is a work in progress cosplaying as a mom, partner, cat dad, and writer. They want to thank you for reading these poems! See Jabulile in issue Fifteen. TWITTER
NEXT >
< BACK
INDEX