Now rise up, and get you over the brook
By Samiya Bashir

We’ve been reduced
to ice cold water, salt and
well-beaten rocks, as though

the old customs could possibly
sustain or keep us clean now. In truth,
we hardly remember these early folkways.

Ah, but what we have hidden – glory! – the angle
of dawn on our fingertips, pressed against our mish-mash
flesh. Your honeysweet lips upon mine at the first conscious breath.

Copyright Samiya Bashir. All rights reserved. Used with permission of the author.

Samiya Bashir is the author of Where the Apple Falls: Poems (finalist for the Lambda Literary Award), editor of Best Black Women's Erotica 2 and co-editor of Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art. Samiya is a founding organizer and board member of Fire & Ink: A Writers Festival for GLBT People of African Descent, and a board member of the National Black Justice Coalition. Her poetry, stories, articles, essays and editorial work have been published across the country and internationally.

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