Antoinette Brim
(You got me) begging like Billie
I’ll attend your wedding this summer in a yellow sundress
bare shouldered with my slipped-out-of sandals tied
by their satin ribbon ankle straps slung over one shoulder
my freshly manicured toes nuzzling the newly cut lawn
your summer wedding set to the coo of captive doves color washed
in lilac and lavender me in a lemon yellow sundress its meringue skirts
outstretched catching breeze; there will be so much you want to say to me
but there won’t be time not this time
Hush now, don’t explain
Funny how some things you can see afar off a train wreck you can’t avoid
So, you give yourself to it open up to the crash and bang of it
feel yourself roll with it wondering all the time if this time
you’ll live through it
And you know that I love you
And when love endures,
right and wrong don’t matter
I’m so completely yours
But Baby, its only spring time now butterflies are yet cocooned
tadpoles are still swimming in their big frog dreams Baby, everything
has a season ain’t time yet for no yellow sundress
Try to hear folks chatter
And I know you cheat
Right or wrong don’t matter
When you with me, Sweet
Your kisses refresh me like Big Mama’s sun tea
set out to steep in the window box strange how it
seems all the sugar settles at the bottom sometimes
when you get to the end it tastes too sweet
Hush now don’t explain
What is there to gain
Your sleepy hand draped lazy ‘cross my thigh
seems right in morning light
Just say you’ll remain
Rising sun don’t mean nothing it rises every morning let it rise
on you here tomorrow and the next day and the day after that
Just say you’ll remain
No need to grope for apologies grope for lies
And you know that I love you
And when love endures,
right and wrong don’t matter
I’m so completely yours
I hear folks chatter
And I know you cheat
Right or wrong don’t matter
When you with me, Sweet
Hush now, don’t explain
Just say you’ll remain
My life’s your love
Don’t explain
Antoinette Brim is the author of Icarus in Love (Main Street Rag, 2013) and Psalm of the Sunflower (Willow Books, 2009). Her work has appeared in journals including Tidal Basin Review, 95Notes, and Southern Women’s Review, as well as the anthologies Villanelles (Everyman’s Library, 2012), edited by Annie Finch and Marie-Elizabeth Mali; Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander (FreedomSeed Press, 2013), edited by Ewuare X. Osayande; Alice Walker: Critical Insights (Salem Press, 2012), edited by Nagueyalti Warren; 44 on 44: Forty-Four African American Writers on the 44th President of the United States (Third World Press, 2011), edited by Lita Hooper, Sonia Sanchez, and Michael Simanga; Not A Muse: The Inner Lives of Women, a World Poetry Anthology (Haven Books, 2010), edited by Kate Rogers and Viki Holmes; and Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta! (GirlChild Press, 2008), edited by Michelle Sewell. Antoinette is a Cave Canem Foundation fellow and a recipient of the Walker Foundation Scholarship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
This poem originally appeared in Psalm of the Sunflower.
Song lyrics from “Don’t Explain,” as sung by Billie Holiday, lyrics by Billie Holiday, music by Arthur Herzog, Jr.