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