She shakes things when she walks.
Head.
Shoulders.
Hips.

Lips erected high on the shifting scaffold of a face,
blue black tarpaulin skin stretched taut across her jagged
splintered cheekbones like a thing I’ve never seen.

Whether you can hear them or not,
there are groups of girls dancing like children on her tongue
dancing, round like memories,
dancing near the barbed wired words,
along which creeps a former lover:
the creaking love of a former man who,
with other men, blow hallowed kisses in every direction, breathing in parts
for a woman who eludes him like some kind of thing he’s never seen. Like a god.
He has loved her for ages.

“I’m talking about you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, girl. You. Is you ah talkin bout.
You, a thing I’ve never seen before.”
Several beats pass lazy like a jouvay masquer at dawn.
This is about a woman who shakes things,
who sees you coming, shaking when she walks.

“Girl?”