Anansi

At the diner yesterday
I saw a little brown man
with eyes like yours
all round and quiet and knowing
they followed me all night

Bent over a sketchbook
with hands like yours
adrift in too much skin
always in motion
conjuring.

I thought of you
of the miles and silence between us
a gulf crossed in anecdotes
and thwarted on this notebook page
as I remind myself where I was born:

A land of gods and totems who range across a taffeta sky
chasing tales like sheep,
of wolves crouched outside impregnable houses,
of animals with cars
who offer guidance,
go to market
with bags full of snakes, ladders, hot stones

I wonder, when the giant bends to pluck the roof from your house
will you transform
and scurry up his knotted arm
to shout into his great round ear-
deep like a well, like the sky,
like the pool you dipped me in
as you held my heel
the heel that hurts me so some nights-
will you shout: Carry me!
What's next, what's next, my love?


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Fetch me my blue fright wig, that I may be handsome when I unleash my wrath.