The Very First Time (2004)

The taste of the hum on my lips

Vibrating its way from a studio somewhere in America

Where Ginuwine once sang of ponies into a stiletto microphone

Speakers that sat unfucked

Until golden crooning lips brought wax to climax

And

As wax tends to do

It melted into a mixtape on a summer sun’s intrusion

Became a warm CD

A sound so palpable I can feel it beading sweat on my flesh

Snaking its way through subway system tunnels

Finding syncopation between breaths and mattress sailing

Over linoleum floors

Teenaged eyelids who had seen more war than peace

In perfect syncopation to the impatient saddle

Ginuwine was crooning about

He made love to us

Nestled us between his oratory

Suckling for fresh milk waterfalls cresting

Over two famished mouths

The half-life of the stereo was nuclear fallout

Rolling like thunderclouds over the misting sun

That carved itself through project window guards

The bassline permeating through flesh

Timbaland’s precision production governing the hips

Digging fingertips into cotton-blend soil

And the harvest--

How she was so bountiful

How I’ll never feel so beautiful again.