– Ekiwah Adler Belendez –
Some things are meant to be
kept safe by incubating in darkness
–E.A.B.
Oh Ekiwah, you pig sniffing language with your long verbal snout
it’s taken you a long time to begin to follow your own advice.
Even before you were fully born you were chanting all and now
raring to go, impatient for this world, for human voices
bodies, oxygen, poems and peaches—born weighing nine hundred grams,
the size of a mango cupped in one hand.
Turning purple trying to breathe
with death like a silver dog at your heels
You couldn't wait to know the insufferable
ecstasy of the bodies’ weight—
and you insisted to drag any stars you could carry
even if their radiance almost burned you alive
as they protected you from black holes and vacant tides
stiff-legged, panting crying and greedy for your life
you said “Bring it on. Yes! For this
I'm willing to be man by day
gargoyle by night
oink oink here and there
seeking the muddy
seeking the divine
swamps of pleasure
pigging out—
whee, whee, yes yes
all the way Home.”