Éloge

            for Aimé Césaire

Aimé, why these poems, not mere ferrements, but
ringworm, bedbugs, searing leeches lodged

within our skin! Even with razors as claws,
never enough scratch, this itch, Aimé.

Marronant, beneath lynched sun, stoned by asteroids,
we bathe in blood from the slashed tongues of stars.

Gently, we swallow one another
baptized by the magma of our throats.

The clash of our teeth sparks as our bodies
conjure amrita blessed to plant as seed aimé.

Tamara J. Madison is a writer, poet, editor, and instructor in Florida. She is a MFA graduate of New England College and a Hedgebrook, Ucross, KHN, and Anaphora Literary Arts fellow. Her work has been reviewed and published in various journals and literary magazines including Callaloo, Killens Review, The Amistad, Poetry International, Cider Press Review, and World Literature Today and is forthcoming in Obsidian. Her most recent full-length poetry collection, Threed, This Road Not Damascus, is published by Trio House Press. She is currently working on a new collection of poetry based on five generations of her ancestry.