A Poem for Women in Rage

A killing summer heat wraps up the city
emptied of all who are not bound to stay
a Black woman waits for a white woman
leans against the railing in the Upper West Side street
at intermisston     the distant sounds of Broadway dim
until I can hear the voice of sparrows
like a promise     I await
the woman I love     our slice of time
a place beyond the city's pain.

The corner phonebooth. A woman
glassed in by reflections of the street
between us     her white face dangles
a tapestry of disasters
seen through a veneer of order
mouth drawn like an ill-used roadmap
eyes without core     a bottled heart
the impeccable credentials of old pain.

A veneer cracks open     hate
launches through the glaze into my afternoon
our eyes cross like hot wire
and the street snaps into nightmare
a woman with white eyes is clutching
a bottle of Fleischmann's gin
is fumbling at her waistband
is pulling a butcher knife from her ragged pants
her hand arcs back      "You Black Bitch!"
the heavy blade spins out
toward me     slow motion
years of fury surging upward like a wall
I do not hear it     clatter
to the pavement at my feet.

Gears of ancient nightmare churn
swift in familiar dread and silence
but this time I am awake     released
I smile. Now. This time is
my turn.
I bend to seize the knife
my ears blood-drumming
across the street my lover's voice
the only moving sound within white heat

"Don't touch it!"

I straighten, weaken, then start down again
hungry for resolution     simple
as anger and so close at hand
my fingers reach for the familiar blade
the known grip of wood against my palm
oh I have held it to the whetstone
a thousand nights for this
escorting fury through my sleep
like a cherished friend     to wake
in the stink of rage
beside the sleep-white face of love.

The keen steel of a dreamt knife
sparks honed from the whetted edge
with a tortured shriek
between my lover's voice and the gray spinning
a choice of pain or fury
slashing across judgment a crimson scar
I could open her up to my anger
with a point sharpened upon love.

In the deathland my lover's voice
fades     like the roar of a train derailed
on the other side of river
every white woman's face I love
and distrust is upon it
eating green grapes from a paper bag
marking yellow exam-books
tucked into a manila folder
orderly as the last thought before death
I throw the switch.

Through screams of crumpled steel
I search the wreckage
for a ticket of hatred
my lover's voice
calling     a knife at her throat.

In the steaming aisles of the dead
I am weeping     to learn
the names of those streets
my feet have worn thin with running
and why they will never serve me
nor ever lead me home.
"Don't touch it!" she cries
I straighten myself in confusion
a drunken woman is running away
down a West Side street     my lover's voice
moves me
to a shadowy clearing.

Corralled in fantasy
the woman with white eyes has vanished
to become her own nightmare
in my house
a French butcher blade
hangs     love's token
I remember this knife
it carved its message into my sleeping
she only read its warning
written upon my face.