Valerie Jean   THREAD Between two women who love the moon, looking into the night from separate cities, the sky hangs pregnant with prayers. Their lives and harsh stories drift off the pages of their letters the way that wet kisses of loud lovers drip off a pillow's edge into soft dreams. Words sift through the dark times and punctuate those screaming white days, when the world cracks and shifts on ground as fluid as the sea, but the women gazing up at the stars see brilliance in each other's heart and can imagine themselves whole. Those old still rumbling fears beaten into their skins dissipate into the sweet lyrics of laughter. Purple crocuses set out of the kitchen counter of the one become background landscaping for yellow lilies bordering the fence of the other. These women sew a sacred quilt between them, using light bouncing off the moon as thread.   A TRIBUTE (to Nina Simone) Her haunting voice do hum on some spirituals mean as sin. And she do demand "some sugar in" her "bowl," sometimes. Her harsh notes drip dark and sacred melodies. Like precious psalms they move the air. In rhythms stark & wavering, her bass thunder rolls and Nina wail--her tongue trembling rocks even the spirit world, moaning that magic that keeps us all whole, close to our own souls, and she lifts us. Martha Tabor Spirit Block (sculpture) plywood, cast hydrocal, ice tongs, fabric, linen 37" x 24" x 7", (1993) see more of Martha Tabor's work     1st ATTEMPT In rare snatches of clarity the sky bares its blue teeth over the insistent gray. The sun ruptures into golden flecks that bleed into the lake. Ripples jerk and sputter at my feet. Here, in this tiny space, blinding sparkles dance under the arched wings of lost sea gulls. Miles from any ocean, the heavy murmur of salt dirges returns, washing over the innocent trees, deafening in the dry air. Like driftwood caught in seductive undertows, I am buoyed back into a deep and desperate drowning blur. THIRD THOUGHT When the moon has crossed three-fourths of the night sky, my tight limbs spread a shadow over the earth. Listening for the cadence of her voice, I am listening for the vibrations of her steps, knowing she runs free now, outside my need. I do not know what I want from her, or from the dark, but every morning finds me frozen to the cold ground, begging sharp-edged stones to swallow me whole, to suck me in to where she lies... broken. TO THE TENTH POWER (AND FINISHED?) After this, I promise myself to never speak of you again, Even though your name seems tattooed on my tongue, an acrid sore. When your mumbling pesters my sleep, I will ignore you. When your hungers settle, a caustic weight in my belly, I will no longer acknowledge your bold, persistent clamoring. Leave! Go find somebody dead to bother. 11 TIMES I TRY Crows follow me around the lake. Their yellow eyes glisten, like sun drops frozen between wings. They stare. Their caws beckon. I am afraid to hear them, but also afraid not to.   Valerie Jean is a poet, writer, teacher, and editor. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, LPs (or Recordings of one journey through a grief), and Woman Writing a Letter (winner of the 1991 Artscape Literary Arts Award for Poetry). Her poems have appeared in three anthologies, Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers and Daughters, Spirit & Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, and the forthcoming Beyond the Frontier, as well as in numerous journals, including The Black American Literature Forum, The Missouri Review, and Callaloo. She has taught creative writing at Essex Community College, the University of Maryland, St. Albans School for Boys, and currently leads the "I Wanna Be a Writer" workshop held at Sisterspace & Books in Washington, DC. Published in Volume 1, Number 1, Winter 2000.   Read more by this author: Jean's Tribute to Georgia Douglas Johnson: The Memorial Issue