Woman carrying basket of pineapple
Atop her head, hair like an Arabesque carpet
Woven with a million coarse black threads

The fruit motionless, still as heavy gold stones
While gentle hill hips sway like sine waves

Woman sitting on dusty street corner
Sipping an ice cold, real-cane sugar
Not-corn-syrup Mexican Coke

Little drops of dew collecting
On the soft fuzz of her upper lip
Diamonds reflecting in noon-day sun

Woman with body lithe like velvet jaguar
Lounging like silk, Lioness on a stuffy mattress

In a room of one hundred Sahara suns
Underneath an old ceiling fan that never stops

Woman with phosphorescent laugh piercing
The cacophony of reggae forever humming,
Like rainbow scythes sculpting sugar cane

Woman with capable, callused hands
Coursing with hot blood, cultural remembrance
Bathing black babies, preparing white rice
In mere moments, without thought, simply memory.

There are worlds of verse between women
Universes of silent understanding also,

Please, woman, come, sit and let us partake
In the sweet, sticky juices of unspoken fruit.