after Danez Smith

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A blues song came to me.

My mouth opened to sing

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& out floated morning glories, sun-kissed mangos.

The blues needed me to create a garden.

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My God, turn my tears into rain to nourish the soil.

It has been nearly a year since the sky took my mother.

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The blues is angry at the sky so I go for a walk.

I seek a man who will turn my pain into pleasure.

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It is what I deserve. The sky watches our bodies

create gardens all around the hood. A harvest

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grows in every empty lot, rusted-over playground

& abandoned building. Lust dulls the blues’ anger.

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Instead of praying, we move our bodies, entangled

in the rain we have made. Here is where we lay,

man & woman, my sweat could be tears.

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The blues knows the hood so well. It travels

every street, greeting every black & brown person

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Who embraces it. Sing the old songs. I forgot

the lyrics in my lust. The sky turns the clouds

gray. Madness or Sadness? I care not

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For the police or the bullets. Lord, let us

sing a new song! The blues needs a break.

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God, forgive us for our dalliances. We need

to break apart the sky. Turn the clouds into

pieces of cotton then shred them.

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With my lovers, I have a reunion. We dance

under a broken sky. The blues is silent.

The hood is silent.

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The police rob another neighborhood

of its peace. The bullets remain in their

chambers. I see my mother’s smile

in the stars.

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u00a9 Shirley Jones-Luke

Shirley Jones-Luke is a poet and a writer from Boston, Massachusetts. USA.