Blackwoman, Whitewoman

for Sonia Sanchez and Aristophanes

I love your skin–
when I lay beside you and my hands
work over you, we are art on a bed
propped up against a gallery wall.

I love the twist of our fingers,
the curious coalescence of our pigments
intertwined in genetic fascination,
our separate possibilities linking
the forgotten beneath.

When we stand in front of each other
and squint through our colours to compare
our woman shapes
we know we are parts of a whole,
somewhere, on some continuum.

We talk about crawling–
me into you, you me, as if some ancestral memory
wants us whole again, packed together
in a single torso–
your breasts cupping my back
my toes running off your heels
in seamless solidarity,

just as we were before punishment came–
before The Knife bisected
and polished us off into these familiar
prototypes, whole
but half.

by Kathryn Koromilas

[Published in Comrades Journal, April/May 2003]