Communion

When I contemplate the mask

In a thirst

I begin with three offerings:

Tortoise shell. Palm fronds.

A riff

Then a knowing, a raveling, a reading

Of the disembarkment, how my ancient ones elided Ogun

On bended knees, chose a sublime God

And lost one hundred fierce names for

the earth, newly drunk on lettered mysteries.

They have passed the cup to me, a branch

of braided roots, to burnish the tree’s sap

to the tip of a thorn, to pierce the veil of the world