Mariama Lockington
two poems
oakland, 2010
all you said was good morning, beautiful all you did
was cook me beans and rice, make love to me again
in the egg yolk light, all you wanted was
to take my hand, joy-stumble into the gasping air
walk the lake while it yawned its silver
long as the eye could see
i can’t tell you how far away i was that year
how safe it felt to prowl around
the dark town, drinking up everything
how good it felt to ram my body into the middle
of a crowded dance floor, only to come out
the other side with someone else to spin myself into
some new flesh to wrap around my bones and organs
my tricky little heart, pumping to a stranger’s rhythm
all you wanted was to keep me, but i was practicing
how not to be still, how to be furious wind
gathering speed and kelp and headlines
all you did was call me beautiful and i
could not breathe, i could not move
i could not howl and thrash the way i needed to
courses
what table set of your bone
what silver what flesh
dream of your throat
what melting what flavor
cumin currant coconut
your clavicle mantle for my mandible
what wishbone split cracked and tasted
rooms and rooms of your marrow
what fullness what hands
what shoulder hip
touch this ending
never before so hungry
never before this taste
savor this mouth
opening and closing
what city lost what walls
what sky all fragments
all polished all candlelit reflection
all slow sipping and chewing
and licking of ones fingers
all drinking and swallowing
and spitting out of ones skin
a single hair caught between teeth
what feasting
each time appearing
before one another
still wanting
what delight
little girls turned plentiful
turned women
plated the two of us
picked to the bone
the very last succulence
what dance what etiquette
what world of carcassash
you and i rising
again and again to feed
MARIAMA J. LOCKINGTON calls many places home but currently lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. She is published in The Comstock Review, Sparkle and Blink, Uncommon Core: Contemporary Poems for Learning and Living (Red Beard Press, 2013) and is a San Francisco Literary Death Match champion. Mariama performs her work around the country and teaches writing workshops for various youth organizations. She holds a masters in education from Lesley University and an MFA in poetry from San Francisco State University.