Meeting
(For Lorna)
By Kwame Dawes

It rains. The blistered skin of this city
     cools. Summer has been an endless circle
of labors -- the heat, the rituals of our lives.
     At noon, the rain stammers to a drizzle

and the thin glow of light catches the bodies
     of women moving quickly; black women
bent low, hurrying through the damp cool.
     And I watch a body, the promise of a smile

in the round of her hips, the rapid nervous
     pace of her, and I take her in as one does
with a familiar movement -- a vaguely comforting
     pattern. This has happened before,

a moment with a stranger, imagining
     that she too will turn, grin -- and I think
of the delicate ribbons of a woman's
     laughter as she comes closer. On the edge
of sin, the naked welcome, I see it is you

and I feel like a strange man waiting to touch
     you with words. In this indiscretion
I want to say I fear losing you; I am
     angry at me for being that strange man

taking you in as a predator does. Your smile
     disarms me, its trust and pleasure in our
accidental meeting -- and the rain gathers
     again in the sky. You hand me the car keys.

We say something about money and time,
     and you hurry away, your hips -- my hips,
the bloody world's hips -- swinging sweetly
     while I cradle in me the terrible fear of love.

Meeting (For Lorna) from New and Selected Poems by Kwame Dawes, published by Peepal Tree. Copyright © 2002 Kwame Dawes. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the author

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