Jake Adam York

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• Legba Says

Legba Says

Father, Mother, me,
says One word hers, one his,
all hours in me. Legba says
Quiet you can hear them
talking, conversation braiding
like swampland streams.
Says Listen says Listen you can
hear them arguing me,
a friction that helps him whisper.
Legba says his mother sounds
(listen close) a tug-of-war,
grandmama, grandpapa pulling word
on word, each a strained strand
of rope, the braid pulling at
itself. Says father’s two-voice chorus
baritones, sopranos out too wide
to ever pass by. Says Listen
when he talks we can hear
his parents dancing, two chords
twining in a larynx, a spiral
twisting waltz of how-you-say?

Look, look down my mouth.
One day Says will walk down
the red clay run of my tongue
into darker midnight where it
crosses winds, Mama, Papa
tune the flesh, my own orishes.
One day Says will walk
the red clay run of my tongue
into upper wind, a man whose twin
depends from his soles all day long,
whose winds say Listen
then braid themselves
into everything.

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