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Cultural Corner: Poetry

Have a poem you think fits into the theme of ZAMI and this site? Please send submissions to zami@zami.org.

Poetry:

• "My Fingertips Aint Drenched" by Melissa
• "A Nasty Business" by Cherie

My Fingertips Aint Drenched
by Melissa

you are more
than midnight visions
more than some place
for curious fingers
to lurk idly in shifting hours

not trying to feed off
your rivers or whispers
or know your name
just for the hell of calling you up

though me behind my walls
i have smiled
and dreamed of it

see before you
my fingerstips were drenched
i went down
with the profile of night
to die with unseen before morning

imagine waking to an obsure touch

a waterlily's praise-song
curled inside me
only to surface without cadence
leaving all my nights
void of the moon

one too many
slim and silver bodies were beneath me
every moment was unnerving
every lie seemed high
re-opening became habitual
fufilling my fury
was a ritual of madness

and everytime I laid down with her
it was better than the last time
but even more empty
as i turned in my bedside
in aviodance of truth

and I am in line
waiting for my misgivings back
wondering who is to blame
for words offered as prayer
before and after peaks reached

I can't play with the rules of a high stakes woman
and even she is not responsible
for words offered as prayer
before and after peaks reached
though once i was her sanctuary

I have learned to keep it sacred
for over year now
don't want to be kept to any body
because even under the softest shadow
you can die for an act of light
but I am unafraid
and unable to resist
feeling it will be you
who can annoit me again.

Cherie is a Black lesbian (29) living in the U.K. Currently training as a counselor, she's a Reiki practitioner and a fitness instructor.