Missing
I meet you again nearly ten years later.
And when you refuse to see me, I split
the horizon of my body to get to the center—
a sparkly soft bellied fish, small enough
to swim in the color of your eye. You smile
and we drive around in this car caked in mud,
grass fluttering in the wheels like purring bicycle
spokes. No Doubt is calling on the radio and you
tell me about how everyone called you Black
Gwen Stefanie or Black Uma Thurman
and I know that you quit journalism because
they let that white girl do your piece on The
Gambia—even though she said all the
words wrong, even though you went once
and it’s all you talk about since—so
I let you talk. In your news anchor voice,
the one that kicks life into the dead, the
one that turns the lyrics of a No Doubt song
into something I cry about while stalking
through the grocery store. I miss you so much.
You blink and the tears are most likely
mine. I never left, you say. You’re right, and
I do pirouettes on the surface of your eye.
You clap. Good form, babe, good form.