If you'll be my Africa
I'll be your South America,
your complement an ocean away.
I think of you when your sands blow my way,
I stare longingly in your direction,
remembering the comfort of your touch, of closeness lost.
My Natal misses your Lagos, Warri, Douala,
her seaside dunes a pale imitation
of the Cameroon volcano she once knew.
My January river wants to reach out and feel your Namibe,
though she dances boisterously, the carnival city is sad,
for she cannot kiss your plains, your enormous desert.
My voluminous Amazon wishes to rush into your Kalahari,
hopes to see Saldanha and Cape Town,
instead, lonely Rio de la Plata empties into the vast Atlantic.
Oh, to be nestled in your gulf, to carress the edge of your deserts,
to hold that body which fits so well against mine just once more.
Though the distance widens,
your signature echoes my own,
you remain my other half.
In this continental orgy
of rift, of drift,
of tan and green on blue.