For Sh.

Like this tarnished sky
this frantic air
and your furiously homonymic fervor
I’ve become accustomed to the wild intrusion
of chromosomes amalgamating me.
With self-centered satisfaction, my tightened thighs
reject the patterns of self-renunciation
between the palms of your hands.
All I need is your breath
to burst through
this autocratic nonentity.
All I need is your monosyllabic name
to tell black voices from white ones.
I do need your
disrobing hands
to accommodate a thousand years
in a single night.

 

February 6, 2009
Los Angeles
Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan