I am a woman searching for her savagery even if it’s doomed - June Jordan

My life seems to be an increasing revelation of the intimate face of universal struggle. You begin with your family and the kids on the block, and next you open your eyes to what you call your people and that leads you into land reform into Black English into Angola leads you back into your own bed where you lie by yourself, wondering if you deserve to be peaceful, or trusted or desired or left to the freedom of your own unfaltering heart. And the scale shrinks to the size of a skull: your own interior cage.

Buddy and Angela keep track of daytime just by figuring out the last and next time they will come together and how long alone. They become the heated habit of each other.

poem for my love

how do we come to be here next to each other in the night
where are the stars that show us to our love inevitable
outside the leaves flame usual in darkness and the rain
falls cool and blessed on the holy flesh
the black men waiting on the corner for a womanly mirage
i am amazed by peace
it is this possibility of you
asleep
and breathing in the quiet air