I saw I dreamt
Two men hoisted hung up not American the rope
Not closed on their breathing
But this rope tied them spine to spine somehow
Suspended
From the mood of a tree not American they were
African Ugandan Nigerian
Without a license a right to touch
The sin their touching incites
And I heard their names called out Revision
Or Die and You Must Repent
And Forget the Lie you Lily-Boys you Faggots
Called up from the mob
Of their mothers their fathers
With Christ in the blood who had Christ in the blood
Who sung out “Abide with Me”
This was my eyes’ closed-eyed vision
This is what a darkness makes
And how did I move from that distance to intimacy
So close I could see
The four soles of their feet so close I was kneeled
Could lick
Those feet as if I was because I became
The fire who abided
I saw that I dreamt
Their black skin made blacker by my feeding
I thought Christ
Why did I think
Their black skin tipped blacker by this American
Feeding but just one shot up
A cry African it was
American O Lord abide with me
It was human lusty flat
You had to be in the hollow of it to taste it
You had to see how in such lack
Invention takes hold
They say some dreams come in the moment
Of waking
Stitched because daylight likes a story
That some dreams are extensions
Of an itch
Thief-walking the coral of the brain
I say
But I did feel that one blue mouth blow out
As I felt
The mood of that tree
As I saw the other turn away apart stay with silence
I stayed with southern silence