Nina smiling

Nina’s Gone: (8 tankas in 7-5-7 time)
By Kamaria Muntu

baroques blaze and expire
in blue empress smoke
while the notes still rage with odor

Simone bled her pain loudly
’til she erupted
currents of anointed breath

Now who will water our backs
in topiaries
applauding exiled beauty?

stung by the Peaches within
I retrieve your name
from a healing song of wind

my truth more than bone and salt
my ashes are dreams
caressing diasporas

Nina Simone with daughter Simone

My lovers kiss black bruises
in broad dialects
i drip starfruit in their mouths

memory is a sly squirrel
gathering her rains
waiting for a cloudless sleep

ne me quitte pas nina
ne me quitte pas nina
nina ne me quitte pas

© Kamaria Muntu
other poems found in her latest book “A Good Lynching Should Be Enjoyed”