Two Love Poems by Kevin Powell

For You 

By Kevin Powell

I could stare at you all day

Even in pitch blackness 

You are a beautiful genius—

I draw you with the soft fingers 

Around my heart

We make funny faces

With our bare feet

Laughter is the lotion 

We put on our bones 

After the shower

Our eyes make love

Like two birds

Twirling in a field of passion

I have never met anyone 

Like you in my life

I am both excited and terrified

Excited because we have been here before

Perhaps in post-war Paris 

Or the Harlem Renaissance

Two lovers swaying to jazz

And French-kissing history

While reading Zora and Langston to each other

Terrified because we are the children

Of families long abused and traumatized

We don’t want to be married to destruction

We want to be free

To write love poems with our bath water

We want to be free

To burn and sage the past with our tears

This is what we dream

As our words hug tight each other

Inside the belly

Of our imagination

© 2022 by Kevin Powell, Saturday, June 5, 2021, 7:44 am.

Love

by Kevin Powell

I adore you

I like you

You are my best friend

May I make love

To your eyes?

May I taste

The heaven-dipped

Mango at the

Edges of your mouth?

Can I be a green

Hummingbird

Sleeping in your soul?

May I, please?

Can I, please?

Forgive me

If I tell you

I love you

Too much

Forgive me

If I want

To stand

In love with you

Bury my heart

In the angel’s halo

That is your face

Hold hands with

You for the next

Fifteen thousand years

And dance with you

Until our feet

Tattoo our names

Into that part

Of the moon

We call us

© 2022 by Kevin Powell, Sunday, October 17, 2021.

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Kevin Powell is a poet, journalist, civil and human rights activist, filmmaker, and the author of 14 books. Kevin’s two poems, “For You” and “Love,” are taken from his forthcoming poetry collection.