I won’t leave, if that’s what you were frightened of.

I just want to move with you.

My back has carried several lifetimes of heartache, but I’d take it off your shoulders first, if I could.

I don’t know what it feels like from the bones, but I know pain. I recognize the half-mast eyelids, heavy from words of masters.

Monsters.

You’ve sewn in hair from Brazilian slave drivers’ ancestors; how does that feel?

Does it make you want to dance?

Do you look at each strand and sob from your diaphragm?

Do you feel the pulse of the motherland as you raise your clenched hand?

Would you let me fall in step beside you, chins pushed up from both our chests?

Do you want me to play with your shadows, slip in and out between them, like the sun?

Groove to voodoo beats—or is that wrong?

We could dance.

We could just be.

You can tell me.

I won’t leave.