Kamilah's Page

HERKU

Oh, we turn and turn
and often, breathlessly, click
but never open

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TRUTH SERUM

In a bar that is home
and isn’t home, waiting
for my lover who is so right
and not right, drinking
and watching patrons
who don’t look like me, but do
around the eyes, sip stiff libations
along the stained, mahogany altar,

I listen to Sam Cooke and Johnny Cash
sing omens and let the idea of
change coming singe a new path
deep within, play bartender
to my inebriated heart (you‘ve had your fill
this round, honey), giving sound,
impartial advice that is toughest
from a friend.

A beautiful mahogany woman who is a stranger
and not a stranger, walks in alone
and smiles. I see her,
really see her, and smile back.

===

PUNCTUATION SHIFT

At some point, I can’t say for certain when,
I stopped being a perpetual bouquet of questions
and became an asterisk.

I believe I can turn out to be anything, still.

Account for me, then I’ll account
for everything else. I’m the hinge
of these mighty doors that my days
must march through. See, at some point,

can’t really say when, I realized that questions
court doubt, too often submit
to being framed for, instead of by, me.

But an asterisk, this star of shining
risk, is a question mark
with a purpose, already in motion—
Not waiting at the mercy
of an answer, but becoming one
on its own.

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