For Richard

the estimated number of cute brown girls with white
nerdy boyfriends is an epidemic!

& his heart resembles an
elevator snapped off its cord.

he gargles sweat chased by frivolous ache
over the phone. once
he loved a woman,
just once
but that was college,
she left him little and
barely kicking.

It took several months for him to grow
his wings back,
to quit brooding,
to make night flesh a rare craze.
he carries a list in the back pocket
of his mind;
when he feels small enough he pulls it out:

/ Can she play videogames?
Will she think twice about the bruises you can’t see…
say… on the heart?
will i have to explain that I’m not sad,
don’t worry / just

inclined to quiet
the way small children wade in pools of water,
like nostril to air
he can swim in a roomful of people
soundless and happy.

will she not meet, but know hip-hop?
accept that place in my heart
where hip-hop refuses to share even
a vein a pulse the remote?
there she cannot take residence

will she have lips that will pry open the
unafraid cloud of him,
harvest his sarcasm until he grows the
tongues of dares & sentimentals?

honestly, before this
will he chart doubt on the graphs of
of his eyes
she’s not in my league, kay

hand gestures are choreographed to this
with other useless stats
no car no ____ no _____
& the myth of the good guy is
labeled onto his back
breaking.

a girl will push her elbow into his rib and say,
your math skills… are sexy.

ask him to stash his palm to her palm
their headnods drunk on
scratched wax, sweet on breakbeats.
because it won’t matter what job you have
because a walk into 4 am cannot be folded
or bought by any combination of coins.

and yes /
there are too many drab men
who dangle legs and thigh sweat like
ornaments / who never call back /
who drive their trusty steed of steel & wheels
off into the sunset--- never
remembering her smell
or how she likes her hair pulled
back from her eyes & couldn’t
possibly pluck a real piece of smirk
from any grown woman’s sullen face

i’ll say this
over & over
bigger than the expanse of
finger sparks on the small of
the right girl’s back

but i’ll say this too:

yes Richard, they do exist
but then, then
there is you.