Your sunset rests between my thighs,

and sweat blossoms like rose buds.

I pick one and tuck it behind your ear.

I tell you, we are our ancestors’

pot of bubbling molasses

filling our bellies after days

of bending over muddied and slicked

in fields that cannot carry our names. 

We lay here, in the shadows,

only because the light is sick of our faces.

Banana leaves tumble over to greet us and

we reply:

Finally, we are here. 

Like you,

we have no masters,

no cotton to pick,

no wailing at the sight of whips or batons

flared out in a gray-blue stroke of dusk.

Only the green expanse of the ocean’s tummy

calling us in to wash sand from beneath our toes

and nectar from the sides of our mouths

instead of our blood.