Looking for soul

“Two sisters ride down with us
to Massawa’s liberation celebration.

One sister is the color of injera; her teeth are big and stuck-out.
One sister is a cinnamon stick.

Their almond eyes are the same.
The ink black hair falls beautiful down their backs.

I see that you love one of them & change my mind
many times about which I choose for you.

Months later, I will show their photographs to my father
who will laugh & say he knows,

‘It is this one,’ he will say, surely, pointing
to the woman whose teeth stay in her mouth.
               (What man will choose a woman
               whose mouth is stronger than his hands?)

But, cousin, for you I choose the older one
whose teeth might be bullets of ivory;

I imagine that from this mouth:
               kites,
               rain,
               ax equal to lace, the yellow & lick
               of a jar filled with
               the sweet of stinging bees.”

Teeth by ARACELIS GIRMAY