You look like an African Queen

Your hair all done up

In hills and valleys of braids

Divided, twisted, turned into more

Complicated patterns of braids

Gold pins adorn the top of your head

Create a universe of suns

Braids long to curl in intimate places

Snake down, telltale S's tendrils and spit curls

Trace down your forehead

Frame your soft round brown face

Fine doubles S's playfully extend down your neck

Endear my heart to spit curls,

Eyes cast, half-mast

Lips gently parted, full and moist

Of what do you dream, my teenage African Queen

I watch you and wonder who you are,

What do you think of and where

Goes your mind when you gaze?

I speculate about your family, your friends

Your enemies, your past,

Who made you what you are?

What have you suffered? What makes you glow?

Or smile My African Queen?

I study your expressions, they linger then flee,

A constant flux, a flow, stop and go

Ahh hah, ... Caught in a momentary thought

A spider web, a flicker of light

Shadows flitter cross your face,

Deep set eyes, warm, dark brown swirling pools,

... Is it anger I see?

Your slightly curled lips reveal disdain

And your ever-vigilant nature

EVER OBSERVANT ... ALWAYS WATCHFUL,

I CAUGHT YOU ON MY SUBWAY RIDE

Over the last three years,

Three women tried to steal my sperm

One was true, she really loved me

She wanted to birth my baby,

I agreed cause I loved her

The other two said

They were on the pill

They just lied

I’m telling you this

cause I know you’re concerned

You’re my very best friend

And I have to get it off my chest

And I’ll tell you right now:

I forbid you to put this in a poem,

I have dominant genes

For some recessive disease,

That although I don’t have it

my children will

Almost all the men in my family

are blinded by this malady

It’s a plague that eats away their sight

It starts in mid to late thirties

They’re stoned blind by fifty

So when Renee, the love of my life

says she wants to have my babies

I had a feeling I never had before:

that overwhelming primal urge

to shoot my sperm within her loins

and watch it swell into a baby

but when we tried

the seed failed to fertilize

And I discovered I was sterile

GOD HELP ME, I WAS DESPONDENT

EITHER WAY, I COULDN’T WIN GENETICALLY

Now I’m brokenhearted

Renee I loved and would’ve married

But she returned to her former lover

and implored him

to seed her female garden

Since then Renee begged me

to remain her friend

and I did because I

didn’t want her to think

I wasn’t man enough to do that

And to this day

I still love her

Now, I’ve got three to take her place

But don’t worry,

Let me set your mind at ease

I can’t be tricked into

being a blind progenitor

and I mean that both ways

I know I should be grateful

But none of them excite me

And although it’s satisfying,

I’m very lonely

for the woman of my dreams