The Geez by Nii Parkes (little red riding hood read aloud txt) 📕

that I witness the darkness relaxing its hold

on our bodies, yielding us to form; first shadowed angles,

the berried tip of your left breast quick to sip warmth

from the light. My in/drawn breath is both desire

and awe; how this break/able body of yours can hold all

of mine, bucking right back, demanding more, is a miracle

– as is this slow awakening of my flesh, mimicking sunrise.

Waking you is my temptation, but the smile that plays

on your sleeping face is my vanity a/live; I will not kill

it. Instead I muse on the subtle/ties of love; how, to reach

ecstasy, I must be weak for you, let you guide me

as I guide you, no egos fingering the edges of our frailty.

I remember your eyes holding mine, our laughter manic,

nothing between us, knowing how well we fit, how all

our migrations have led to this moment. We spare no energy

for questions, the kind the world’s eyes throw at us

the same way the morning/light separates us into sable/sand.

Contiguity

Separation is a seven-minute walk

taken together, one train stop alone,

followed by another train and an hour’s flight

– three hours if you count the formalities

at the airport: the stripping of layers,

a life exposed to x-rays, picking up after.

But it is also walkable miles, days

of silence and three months before

we will be together again. And these metrics,

distance and time, cannot unravel the hours of

your voice’s life in my ears, the space the warm

earth essence of you takes up in my nostrils, why

my body in sleep makes space for you

even when my arms can’t cradle your flesh.

Travelling Solo

Coded in smiles and that buzz

we share in the grip of one-

of-a-kind books, paintings, songs...

is a key we both know – one

we build charged chords of joy from,

transpose, dragging 7th notes across days

twisting distortions into possibility.

We’re on a stage and distance is the noise

at the bar – we play harder to rise

above it. The need to make a living

switches tones between major&minor

but we solo our way back to origin ♩

it’s the way we write and don’t ♪ it’s how

we kiss instantly or hover in hunger – pine ♪

the way, with knowing smiles, we tangle

like some fantasy found in the spine

of a book, two cinnabar shades snug

in the heart of a painting, phrases that

overlap in a song that repeats like a love

supreme, a love supreme ♪ it’s that

way that you hold me ♪ the way we

hold we ♪ the way you hold hold me

like I’m leaving the melody, knowing

I’m coming back, but still... but still...

Blowing Smoke

for the curve of dismounts

o

She lifts her head to gift the stars white

smoke and my lips are drawn to the floral

arch of her neck, inching higher, the swirl

her fragrant exhalations make becoming night:

breath to air, dust to dust – we are mortals

drenched in a hummingbird sensation of time.

oo

I have known moments like this; my naked torso

brown as the bark of the mango tree I’ve mounted,

its leaves camouflage while I watch my playmates

seeking me, excitement choking me the same way

her moving fingers make my breath hover. She catches

me in the corner of her eye, my lips tremble on her

skin before the giggle becomes sound: lightning to thunder.

ooo

Sometimes I was found: some girl or boy throwing stones,

breaking the amnios of leaves that protected me – but most

times I just got tired of waiting and shimmied down. Love

is a little like that; the playmates plentiful as pollen grains

yet only a few bursting beyond the red bubble of lust

to the heart, the after-giggle, where the smoke rings go.

How I Know

“I smile a little more than I did before...

That’s how I know love.” – The RH Factor

Some memory of darkness; soft expanses

of ebony – and flesh that turned liquid

on my tongue, in the clasp of infant gums.

A body that moved to soothe me, a body

with shoulders angled to support leaning.

Notes hidden like silverfish in the creases

of my books, six-year-old fingers turning

care-perfect Ds, surprise declarations that drop

out on stages, reminding me that I’ve birthed

a girl with heart, a child who knows healing.

The smell of almond and Shea butter in the hair

of an embrace, the sound of trains passing, a glut

of air as tunnels fill with weight, slow breath

as I try to hold a moment that feels like one

that shouldn’t pass. We’re skin to skin at the cheek.

A boy’s smile that emerges as his mother’s

door closes, his hands reaching for the learned angle

of my shoulders, the circumference of my neck

soon in the clasp of his thighs, monkey bar antics

fading as a girl warms my cheek with her small hand.

This is how my dad felt, perhaps. All I remember is fleeting

but I recall the scratch of a pin on shellac, the wound

of Mahalia’s voice rising to fill a house, the weight

of his arm around my neck, the whisper of a smile

moving the wood of his skin, his voice saying, Listen.

In the poetry section of a bookshop, my hand in the crease

of an anthology of Brazilian poets, lost in the black joy

of word after apt word, I lift my eyes and see the woman

who said yes to dinner. She moves and my mouth is wide:

between us, a field of teeth straining to do more than just smile.

Of Sides

Love for you is

what you have

witnessed: doing

something you hate,

proof of sacrifice.

Love weighed in debts:

a chorus of chores.

Love for me is what

I know: loving

whatever i’m doing

because it is done

for love, done with

song, skip in the heart,

the task forgotten.

Every day you smile

less; my smile becomes

wider. To onlookers it seems

I am consuming you.

I am the one who is

wronged, but love is

a cushion of many sides.

Locking Doors

(for Teacher & the Sundance Kid)

To free the L from its metal perch, slide

the torpedo of its head into place, locking

the front door – to check the fires of the gas

stove do not still burn... He remembers it’s night

and darkness brings duties. He holds your hand

guides you to the bathroom, turns on the light,

turns away before you turn on him, as you do

sometimes when the cache of your memories reset

making him a stranger. He can recall Grand National

winners’ names for the