EVA YAA ASANTEWAA

HOW SHE ROSE

I remember how she rose with nothing on/but water..."
                                      —Mark Irwin ("Domnica")

each tide
an argosy of droplets
in rapturous alliance
storming sand
tracing topography
of spellbound sea stones
licked clean
in search of gold

sand yields to water
water to stone

stone
in time
to water

at ebbing always
scattered droplets
linger

linger
 

FLYING

cormorant combs
the river's loosened hair

hudson's august haze
shadowland rain

breeding gulls skim
cresting foam

ancient silver my blood
land my veins

imagine nothing built
cramping the water sleeve

moroccans tell
of a djinn who married a man

each day yearning to join
her sisters in the sky

all things holding still for showers
now save this thirsty river
 

Eva Yaa Asantewaa's poetry appears in several anthologies, including The Zenith of Desire: Contemporary Lesbian Poems about Sex; Does Your Mama Know? An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories and Queer Dog: Homo Pup Poetry, as well as in Brooklyn Review, Kuumba, Starfish, WV, Tempus, The Isis Papers, and the Pegasus Dreaming, Star Leaper, and Pedestal Magazine Web sites. She is proud to have been included in An Eye for An Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11 (Regent Press) and will appear in Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity (Redbone Press). Since 1976, she has covered dance for print and online publications including Dance Magazine, Soho News, and The Village Voice. As a WBAI radio broadcaster (1987-89), Eva worked with the Women's Radio Collective and the Gay and Lesbian Independent Broadcasters Collective (OUTLOOKS), and co-hosted the Tuesday Afternoon Arts Magazine and produced her own specials. See DancingWorld, Eva's monthly eNewsletter, and her own website.

More of Eva's work appears at Poetz 2002 and Poetz 2003.