to claudia

This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 5 No. 1 "Good Times and Growing Pains." Find more from that issue here.

my skin

bites me hard

the heat of this day

and these chains

bleed me

and still I hear your pounding heart

 

summer nights in alabama

are not meant for lovers

the evenings were cooler

in africa

in the infancy of our love

 

negroes

below us boast of revolution

in these barren cotton fields

the heat laughs at us

the heat dares us to die

but i say

the struggle must wait

at least until tomorrow morning

for i have found

sweet blackness

in your arms this night

and i love you too much to die