Watching love stories on TV,
watching a movie,
I wonder where we are.
I've wondered for a long time.
I've never seen any of us there,
straight on, like nouvelle vague lovers,
like psychedelic dancers.
I've never seen us, arms akimbo,
standing in the morning, waiting,
lying around in grassy meadows,
reeling in the pounding surf in a
burst of sunshine--
pale colors out of focus
or in focus, bright colors,
blacks and whites...
Where have we been all this time?
Where are we now, the right now which
we're living?--Dark boy and blond boy
up there no different than any two people together.
I've wondered sometimes if that's what
it feels like to be black--
looking on all the time at exquisite or
banal white rituals:--
the car racing along the curves of the Riviera,
Miss Crawford striding despairingly in full
sequins into suicidal waters--
but have been caught up short wondering
if a black would be offended by such a comparison.
So where do we go to see what we know exists?
Other than some campy enclave--the "in" resort
or "special" bar?
How feel or develop good longings,
good works, good words,
to make into poems or plays or novels
or songs or movies
that will celebrate our realities?
And where can we go to see,
like everybody else, those untrue-true,
crescendo-ridden technicolor fables
which begin by accident,
as do all true love stories,
and end in death,
as do all men's affairs?