Soules, Poetry by Ayah Aly

Genre: Black Love

Souled
by Ayah Aly

I have rummaged through octaves
And skin hues and hair bushels of all sorts
Searching for my profoundly dead ancestors
In women with Emmett’s sunset eyes
And men with Maya’s sandstone-like stature
Not quite unintentionally, barely efficaciously.
Then there was you.

I liked the way your wrists bled of tragedy
And our bodies’ scars wore the same timeline –
The sounds they made when mated as soil and seed,
Singing in like and ecstasy.
His-tory became our story,
Equality enjoined our platforms of persecution,
Preaching on justices that were as real as freedom,
Malcolm, Huey, Sandra, Tamir, Trayvon all wailing
To the verses of our Love-making.
Harping tunes that our hips swayed to,
Taking us left and right and then down 6-ft below.
To the arms of mama and papa and Uncle Ben,
Whistling “Grab you a pardner an’ promenade around”
Our hearts prostrating in submission,
Crying “..Hah-a Rosey, pin my true-love by my side..”
Married at last –
Breathless from the crimes committed through
And throughout our outlawed Love.

Knowing it ain’t the Stars that’d kept us together,
But the Biscuits n Chitlins n Grits
That did ’em magic things.
Yes’m always tol’ me that the way to keep a man
Was to feed him right.
So to preserve this raw infatuation,
You and I sprung from soul-food.
Realizing that Love ain’t Love when pioneered too far from home.

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