SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue 1 - Journal - Page 97
SINE QUA NON
Michelle Alexander
To Wish for Ourselves
For Corbin
Suzanne Césaire to
her husband Aimé Césaire
Martinique torrents through you when we sleep
in that other land, in that outside power, which still pierces through
each layer of the language with which we unearth.
You wake refreshed in the flash without
having touched
the glass of water on the bedside
I marvel,
but understand. When no one else is around, and sometimes when there is
we take turns shedding the grip of colonial logic. Dissolving in the hunger…
in a summer fare. Perhaps tonight, there will be “paysanne” cut
beets on the stove.
The color they exude will not elude the tightrope of hope
stretching between us. We wake having touched the water ourselves…
Where the sampan boats float, you and I love, are signifiers
of magic like the word “liberty,” which we want to ‘make honest.’
We’ve begun
a first song that sings of us, an Orpheus blackening.
Now, what reads back our relationship counts us as blue,
blueish, blueish-green. Through this color, which waters to black,
our critical power anticipates each layer of the language we unearth.
We are hard-won beings—this fact surreals us.
When to savor is to return as you do. Our indwelling:
Power raised on little
time. The changes call us.
No matter how the beginning
chars—
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