Afrodisiac

when i first saw you
something in me clicked
as if something was out of place
like an old al green song I had never heard before;
somehow I knew the harmony.
i didn't say a word,
but i touched your hand
and suddenly I am  back to a time when our great grandparents were conceived
-fertilized forcefully by the seed of some european plantation owner,
or locksmith,
or minister--
you're crying,
but your tears are falling from my eyes as well
and I try to change the subject by recalling
 the memory of  secretly meeting you in the pantry of a very large mansion in West Memphis,
us kissing and holding each other in the darkness as quickly and as much as we could before getting caught  by one of the other house niggers.
thinking he was doing the right thing,
until he got auctioned off and traded in for 2 younger house niggers and a young girl
a week later.
and i didn't say another word.
we don't know each other
but we both shared the fact that our parents were born from the children of mothers  that couldn't sit at the front of the bus,
tired from a long day of cleaning houses and raising kids,
they came home too tired to raise their own
and i didn't say another word.
our blackness unifies us under the same differences for which we are mistreated by the mainstream.
you're crying again,
but I don't want you to cry
I need you to be strong because you are the mother of our future children
and in case I get lynched  for being accused of even looking in the direction of a white girl
//
my sons
my daughters will need you
I need you to be the strong beautiful brave black woman you were before during and after
me....
but that won't happen
I ain't goin no where
because I'll be looking in the opposite direction.

lookin' at you.

and helpin' you.
lookin' at you.