Brother Yao   OUTSIDE THE CHURCH after church on Sunday smoking a cigarette, standing under the shadows of a tree ..........your father looks like one of the great musicians standing next to your mother who is wearing a peach dress, scarf hanging around her neck smile breaking across her face like some new weather. plain and simple, .........one of those usher women who held flapping flapping wings of the holy spirit in the first aisle in the body of the church in Sunday's heat .........under the fan of the funeral home, under the fan of Martin Luther King Jr.'s saintly face, amen. ........could be Billie Holiday sorrow grained into her skin, her music a rare form of wood easily noticed, in Baltimore in Mobile, in Chattanooga women and men, faces made out of its flesh a certain type of people, who are gospel and jazz at the same time, sad and hungry or giving birth to new generations, new musics .........a little boy whose suit is too big could be John Coltrane asking his mother why? as though why? were the spell that will pull the sun down why? going out searching beneath the clouds .........it begins to drizzle a touch that sends people back inside under the steeple or rushing towards their cars which are now showing tiny bubbles across their skin as though some music behind the scenes is erupting making the people tremble ........as the rain grows harder     TIJAN I say your name Question Mark The spot Where the ancestors bleed from their hands and feet Where Bibles cannot be read, where work is an all day All night thing, where love comes and goes slowly Through the body of the tired, a dim glow This family is Africa in America A parable, a worn black boot No longer will I sing the names Of demons, hoisted in my head Hanging upside down bats of despair No longer will I sing the song Of sorrow, though the blues Is a season that comes and goes And when it comes We will open our mouths So that the song will pour out We looked into the sky and Rain came down, and though The storm shook us, we did Not die, Amen. And you came, a blessed Messenger, the number We had not counted, the deal We had not struck, and we Knew--we could not be blamed Where there is thunder And lightning God is working Asha and Dhoruba Asha and Dhoruba Without shame we asked The sky for help, took dirt In our hands and crumbled it Climbed the mountain, admired Its beauty, jagged edge Where the plans had ended God pour through us Another child, we do not know Things have come to this Your smile Your tiny head Your wobble Towards the impossible     WHOODONITS The feet of angels Don't make footprints ..........An Obvious fact .........Whatsup with that A stroke Growing in my grandfather's Temple ten years Before it happened .........Invisible .........Reality Tiny specks in the T.V. Static snow, sleep in your eye Growing possibilities, echo Of a basketball bounce down My street at 11:58 P.M. .........Too much noise A bible in every room Drafts under the doors The wind singing Code pointless conversation .........You know .........What I'm talk'n bout The orisha my grandmother Pray to, when lightning flashes Its silver hair across the sky And thunder come stomp'n .........I hear 'em talk'n .........Outside my window As though a corner were A village square, and Africa Is still caged up somewhere In there     TRAINS Steam Whistle Black coal City talk talking 'Round me Neon Flash of Sex Racing motor Of glamour Walking, walk Past the shut doors Bolt lock teeth Lonely flags Searching in the wind For their meaning Porches, With their mouth pieces Old rocking chair Loneliness Track by track Step by step I will walk Follow the tracks To the end Of this country Taking the song Of the conqueror Through my body Black coal Whistle Steam Brother Yao is a poet living in Capitol Heights, MD with his wife and three children. He has been published in the African-American Review, Crab Orchard Review and other journals and anthologies. Published in Volume 2, Number 4, Fall 2001.