Always Messing with them Boys
Jessica Helen Lopez             BACK      NEXT

This Sunday Morning

I like the honesty
in the swelling of
the skin when you
reach out for my clit

spoon dagger your fourfingers
around the column
of my thigh as I push
my small mango ass
against your body curled
around my body

Sunday morning ? the light
has its way with us
burrowing and peeling
back our eyelids

I like the honesty
in your tongue,
as direct as a man’s
starched work shirt
silken as pearlescent buttons
when you go down

Your ivory pink-tinged hands
part my brown thighs
as I sigh into the pillow
into the pulpit of me,
you speak truth
as true as the taste of
cold fruit on a hot tongue ?
Guava


Last Thanksgiving
my father rejected you
So, I rejected him and we fled
that upside-down desert town

You were too white,
blonde butter cream curls,
eyes that burn as blue as
the strip of sky that followed
my car as we drove
the hell out of there

we picked our way
to your hometown to break
bread with your people

The dark beauty and
brutality of the South,
her history still
sweats memories of
plantation houseboys and mammies,
the legacy of dark water negligence
in the sorrow songs of Katrina,

where some people
still count on their fingers
how many nigger jokes
they can remember

We drove 15 hours to Shreveport,
Lousiana, stopping to fuck once
on the side of the highway
The diesel engines burned
down the world around us

We had our own thanks
to give ? our bodies, mine,

brown as sand, simple as dirt
yours ? not quite white, no
peach in places, burnt sunset
right before you turn salmon pink,
blood orange

The star inside of me
unraveled and I came
all over you and the passenger
seat of my car

Together, you and I
are a moveable feast

Kiwi ? the grape on the vine,
toes, mouth, anus, pubis,
clavicle, the scent of nopales
and fresh mayhaw jam,
the smashing of bones, the
bodies’ oils, the crest
of desire rearing pulling
small tidal waves in my chest
and out of my mouth

This Sunday morning
you push your way
into my cunt
and I let you.

We fuck away the
history of ignorance
the belt across my back,
the memory of your father’s
fingers closing around
your throat cutting off
your power because
you spoke your mind
once or twice.

We fuck away all
those white boy jokes
my family insists
are funny

In the hollowed church
of our bed, our shared
Sundays are holy
There are no words
only orchestral moans
and darting tongues
we push our worlds into
one another ? Baptist sermons
filled with brimstone and
the blood of a Catholic Christ.

We breathe life into
each others’ lungs

Grapefuit ? slivers of nectarine,
a rooted flower in the belly,
magnolia and sage, clit
tip of dick, so soft
hip bone on hip bone,
nipple to nipple, palms
bursting with sangre de sandia,
espiritu santo

Together we make
our own religion

I let you spoon dagger
your four fingers into
my mouth, this
is what we taste like,
like re-written history
like milk
like cinnamon

like sweet, sweet revolution
like slow, slow Sunday mornings.

I like the honesty
in the swelling
of this skin.

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