“Ne Me Quitte Pas”: ‘I Put A Spell On You’: Nina Simone: 1965

Daqui

A single pant leg dangles from the chair.
Mud from the hem leaves graves on the floor.

Crescent moon: the last button
                of your shirt caught
                          between my teeth.

Cricket: a record player cracks
                          its skipped obsessions.

A single pant leg dangles from the chair.

Stars: dust from your ankles climbs
the slats of streetlight.

              Où l’amour sera roi: only the pits
                          behind bent knees are kingdom.

Mud from the hem leaves graves on the floor.

Your underarm holds a nest of burned leaves
I rub my face against. I smolder in the key of animal.

A single pant leg dangles from the chair,

a cougar unrolling the cologne
of a doe from its tongue.

              Où l’amour sera roi: only the pits
                          behind bent knees are kingdom.

Mud from the hem leaves graves on the floor.
A single pant leg dangles from the chair.

Phillip B. Williams