Woman
you make me want to be a rock star
Me
The-woman-who-chose-to-be-a-poet-
Because-she-has-no-affinity-for-the-note
stood neck deep in the dark sweat of women
screaming your name
You
Muscled thick under black
too cool to dance
you just rocked the crowd instead
moved white women to tears
and told a thousand nappy headed black girls
that dread locks were the statement for sexy
That
girlish smile on that face
I know that face!
the quick dip of the chin
the slow seep into a blush
your charcoal skin will never be dark enough to mask
the guilty pleasure of really loving what you do
I
have stretched my insecurities
out under that smile
felt it's glow light up in the heat
of my own revolution
on the face of a woman who loves sushi and salmon
I have kissed that smile into a giggle
it is the smile of a woman who likes the smell of
herself
it is the smile of a woman who will touch your hair
with her hands
and hold your sorrows in her heart
Like
honey over the raw edge of leather
the forbidden urge of your voice cut
into the eager mouths of infants
dripped into the crevices of our flesh
and we swayed with the want of women in boxers
and women in thongs - you could do no wrong in this
crowd
You
- with your strings
pulling our coiled insides from hiding
you - with your back larger than they say it should
be
woman I just wanted to be you
for one moment I wanted to touch the soft ball night
you carry so light in your bosom
I wanted to lead my people out of the bliss of not
knowing
when not to lay down
when not to take what life has offered
simply because they were born
in this country of thorns and roses
Phoenix
that you are
you made us rise to the sound of the gong
lift the ash from our heels and dance
you swung our hips against the age-old slumber of
silence
and we shouted for you and for ourselves
and for the selves we were still hoping to be
and
the battered women were jumping
and the bashed lesbians were holding each other
everyone screaming their own name
caught up in the frenzy
of the private-public conversation
we were courting with you
we were drenched in the saga of you
water leaving your body like rain
music leaving your fingers like fire
...and
then it was over
and
you! made it seem like nothing!
like being myself was all I would ever need to be
and I wanted to thank you
I wanted to thank you
...but
you were gone
the
empty stage blinking it's wounded eye in a pulsating
promise
with
no other way to tell you
I simply folded my muted gratitude into myself
and used the dark ink to write you a poem
(c)
2000, Staceyann
Chin
