Aria For Diva
By Kofi Fosu Forson

I
Love was a summer stage
And by its definition, fasting
Could have become idolatry.
The pajama possibility and my
Cracker thin body crumbling.

Hers beckoned towards opera:
An accented femur, fleshed.
Our faces flushed the trust.
What seemingly could become?
A floundering or just suppose
Gathering mouths to speak.

Evenings hint at toasts of passion.
There holds the reasons for
All Diegos' and Fridas' redress.

Liberated by choice as masculine-
Her overachieving tie,
blazer's politeness never causing a stir.

It was to be a night of words
Fallen onto the lap of a magnum
Opus surviving a reader's punk,
Celebrating a strapless gown.

As evening dwellers left wondering,
We exchanged tongues as "Shalom"
To all the "Englishes" I had known.
My poetry was her unleavened bread.
To think the wind hollers Jerusalem.

Walking without effort of wings
Helping us, towards Chinese delicacies.
She never had a Tsing Tao, certainly
Heineken is preferable for a visitor
Having hung her eyes on strangers.

I defied the intolerable maladroit
Campaign between us, assuming
A world leader's role, only to break
Some bread as a symbol of peace.
Boston, had swallowed her whole,
Where other strangers had borne
Witness to temples and matzo.

I pressed time by releasing steam
Caught inside ironbars within me.
Never thought divinity was blessed
By touch-tone, until Raymond Carver.

II
Our mornings were kissable but
We left them dry among napkins.
The forks friendlier than any
Absurd vulgarity from windows.

It should have been July. October
Shook a leaf, hiding behind masks
Offering a feeling for late cinemas

Still, imagining ourselves as birds
Headed south as a latitudinal means
Never boarded the "V" in the sky
Or any Paleolithic ritual where
Rubbing our bodies to keep warm
Would suggest camping under mattresses
While a bang-box belted a Costello.

Supposing a song could ever be written
About two labyrinths on Christopher St.
What roles would we play in a bel canto?

Our secrets turned into an arousal for
Neighbors bagging groceries to heaven,
Trampling staircases, longing for air
As keyholes were imaginative tolerances.

The days' matinee had an original heart
Circling from avant garde art, then cheese
At an Italian cafe, where conversations
Cured the afternoon corduroy thoughts.

Roads left us that aggregate load
Separating regulars from stubborn
Travelers jigging. We were neither.

On her birthday, we left some of our
Clothes attached, but we contributed
A romantic play written as one act
Which featured breathing without words.

And the eloquence of our bed--
Today, it sits as a heralded thing
Collecting newspaper headlines.

Friends found festive cups cozy
In the apartment where we simulated
Mating chimpanzees surrounded by
Texts that should've made pedagogues
Proud at the sound of the word
"Mesozoic" or a generation captured
As photographs governing quirks.

III
Good-byes were something unexpected
As the Venus in Furs she gave me.
To one day laugh at the moment
Spent opposite each other over
A table at her favorite Japanese,
Where she breathed pass my shoulder
Words meant for a commoner in lust.

She failed me and flowers would never
Ressurect the attituide I had grown to face.
What had collapsed neared a wounding.
The stranger must've been magician
Or a jester in the autumnal chill
Atop winsome roofs observing in
Pauses, her incriminating body language.

I challenged him with expurgations
Knowing he had been a fiddle to other
Violins, since he jolted for a Soho triumph
That very night when all I saw were
Taxis awaiting my ride onward.

Each moment wore an expression
Made of plaster, I broke with hammer.
Sleep was an owl's eye as the moon
Created a riddle while I succumbed.
Next morning, a fellow teetotaler
Did everything to keep me from drowning.

Her words when we met again, were that
Of a precocious school girl fibbing.
Speaking not sympathizing in shame.

We walked a short walk towards a pizzeria.
Later I watched her pack compact discs
And tantalizing clothing into luggage
Which were sending her cross-country
As a diva demanding roses after each
Curtain when men block egos
With handkerchiefs and live to suffer.

Postal service sent me a photograph
And it was she who had her nipples
Exposed to the sun: The girth.

Never knew her as a performance, rather
An artist who willed her way willingly.

It was winter and she labeled herself
One with the gender that brings me chaos.