Ode to Black Skin

You are dark as religion. Remember God

could not have named a modicum of light without you.

You are plum, black currant, passion

fruit in another woman’s garden. You are Black

as and as if by magic. Black not as sin, but a cave’s jaw

clamped shut by forgiveness. Color of closed wombs and bellies

of ships, you, dark as not the tree trunk but its every cleft.

I chart each crescent moon rising above fingernail

and rub together my thighs for want of you. I try

to find you where the pages of books meet. You hang

where men or piano keys segregate. When I miss you,

I remember the hickey the sun left on the back of my neck.

If I forget, I smoke blunts down to my fingertips

and beg you to come on my lips. This is how I pray for you

when I’m not pessimistic. I bow to your darkness like I kneel

beside a child’s bed, confessing as gospel, there’s no monster here.