Like Black Women Love Wait. I'm gonna love you like black women love their children. Gonna dig way down, call upon the history my fore-sisters built, fill you up with wonderful, nurse your self esteem in the arch of my back. When u are low, I'll refresh your spirit with tales drawn from the well of my momma's childhood memories. Wait. I'm gonna love you like black women love their men. Thick-lipped words of encouragement will breathe icy cold on heated epitaphs of venom-laced hatred. My over-stuffed hips cache a resevoir of strength. Like grandma's hands I'll knead your worn-out pride with kindred understanding. I'm gonna love you like the whores of masters loved the light of day. Wait. I'm gonna love you like black women love themselves: without reservation; strong. Yvonne (c) 1998 _________________________________________________________________ Man's Best Friend A man's best friend will love him even when he is impotent and cannot fake a smile will cry with him when he is overcome with grief and cry for him when he is overcome with pride wax solid and stoic when strength alludes him puff him up when the pride that steadies him unleavens A man's best friend will tenderly cup his face to catch invisible tears ache for him, assume the weight of his burdens before it breaks his spirit will hide his face in her bosom like a mother comforts a son and open wide; lie down in a bed of her own insecurities, that he might once again find that which makes him BOLD will envelope him in legs; cling to his neck to ensure he knows he's needed and give up every space he claims as his own to make sure he can breathe. A man's best friend is his woman. Yvonne (c) 1998 _________________________________________________________________ When Love Is Slow When love is slow it is the longest time; unending. Like the motion of the sea it ebbs and tides; builds and subsides. It is fluent as the pen of my favorite poet; rhythmic, precise persuasive and oft misunderstood. When love is slow It is a graceful dance and lingers. Like a long, extended version of the sweetest song; it hums along, recurrent, like the thought of you in my mind. It goes ,it comes again and again, and is oft misunderstood, when love is slow. yvonne (c) 1999 Rev 07 _________________________________________________________________ Sunday Revival Cross-legged on the floor, atop a worn Persian rug grabbed in a garage sale twenty-five years ago The needle womps across an old, scratched 45 Of Chaka Khan riffs- a chain of modulating triads. Leisure in cut-off tees, coulottes and barefeet, Ponytails and bangs, frayed edges of the seventies. A sign that today is Sunday: the toasted crumbs of bagels, cream cheese and bacon, mimosas rest on discarded, unread sections of the Daily News. Diffenbachia and Fern turn to catch unfiltered rays. As the sun sneaks toward the center of the living room We are like this day - lazily stretching towards noon. Yvonne (c)2000 _________________________________________________________________ Every Day I Hear You (for grandaddy) A decade has passed since morning found you lifeless and grounded me in the reality of death, acceptance made less pungent by the longevity of your years. You told me okra would bite me and cotton would sting, tall tales to ensure the curvature of my young, delicate spine would never know the bend and pull of your daily grind. Still, I longed to drink my coffee black like you. I have not forgotten the huck-huck old age culled into your laughter, how a relentless Georgia sun leathered your burnt sienna skin. You are the poem that has stuck in my throat for 10 years, like a tear on the edge, unwilling to risk the fall. Every day I hear you. Speaking to me in the slowing of my father's gait, swaying in the wrinkled droop of my mother's breasts. In the clarity of my own ripening wisdom, I hear the long overdue poem that is you and like the crust of grandma's blackberry doobie, ten minutes deep into the oven, I am still not quite ready to write. yvonne (c)2002 ________________________________________________________________________________ I Love Him Wholly I Love him wholly with a thoughtfulness that far exceeds the quickening of my heart. When he walks into a room, I view him not blindly, but with clarity of vision; acknowledging his weaknesses as well as his resplendence. Having observed his childlike tantrums in moments of insecurity and witnessed obscenities randomly flung in rage; having walked the grounds of his peculiar traits and eccentricities and stains the smitten heart often tends to cache; I love him wholly. I love him wholly with a consciousness that rivets me in spite of passion's flight. When he tells me who he is, I listen closely; not hopeful, but with discerning ear. Accepting his impressions of himself as all he can ever really be to me; Having felt his shoulders falter as he labored to meet my needs and watched the rebel caged up in his shell; Having peeked beneath the surface where his anguished soul retreats I yet ignore the place my vanquished heart would choose to dwell, and still, I love him wholly. Yvonne � 1997 _________________________________________________________________ i want to tell him to be rain, to skeet himself into cracks where the dry seeds are hidden, to be a thing i could not live without i want to tell him to be wind, to give an unyielding push when life-old fears undermine my cautious gait, to hold me back when I want to flee i want to tell him to blaze like fire into cold places, to melt rock candy into pliable taffy, to lunge and lick and burn the middle soft until it stretches beyond inhibitions, refined. i want to tell him to be time, to tick-tock away silent spaces and heal crusted wounds. then, like the lingering wisdom of fathers, i will remember all that he taught me when he runs out. Yvonne (c)2002 ________________________________________________________________________________ N'another Day N'another tear fall from my eye n'another day you see me cry if i rot or if i die n'another tear fall from my eye down in Camden My man gamblin he lose all midnite ramblin Po-lice call say dey spot em now dey got em gainst da wall n'another day you see me cry n'another tear fall from my eye if i rot or if i die n'another day you see me cry my son cyrus got da virus from a honey he call iris mighty funny when it killed him dey still billed him for the money n'another tear fall from my eye n'another day you see me cry if i rot or if i die n'another tear fall from my eye daughta kelly big fat belly she hope maybe k y jelly loose da baby cause it cain't grow when there ain't no room where dey be n'another tear fall from my eye n'another day you see me cry if i rot or if i die still u see me eyes so dry for my man or my dead son or for my dawta crazy one for da baby lose his life for da momma's pain and strife promise myself til i die n'another tear fall from my eye. yvonne (c)1998 _________________________________________________________________ Background & Graphics By
