Sunday Poem

Nina's Blues

Your body, hard vowels

In a soft dress, is still.
.

What you can't know

is that after you died

All the black poets

In New York City

Took a deep breath,

And breathed you out;

Dark corners of small clubs,

The silence you left twitching
.

On the floors of the gigs

You turned your back on,

The balled-up fists of notes

Flung, angry from a keyboard.
.

You won't be able to hear us

Try to etch what rose

Off your eyes, from your throat.
.

Out you bleed, not as sweet, or sweaty,

Through our dark fingertips.

We drum rest

We drum thank you

We drum stay.

.

by Cornelius Eady 

from Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems

published by Putnam, 2008