Tuesday Poem by Remi Olutimayin

My magic isn’t found in one place
Magic is not sedentary
Magic is not plain and ordinary
It is the ephemeral made real
Like a kiss long overdue
Like a dive into the open and unknown
Of another person’s hidden
It is the secret made plain
Because you were ready
Because you were hungry enough
The divine hides in plain sight
And we chase it as if it were
Any kiss, any hold, any grasp.
It is not, because if it were
Anyone would fill the void
I find magic in you
Magic made real, not plain
In the rise of your curves
In your yielding that shapes me
In your receiving that makes whole
The incompleteness I bear.
Man or woman, sage or fool
Truth is truth and magic
Magic is the truth in our meeting
Of lips, of hands, of tastes
Of reaching and attaining
But wanting to reach again.
Let no man lie to you about me
Do no lie to yourself either
When I make myself before you
When I become through you and for you
It is a chase of life for life
To be unmade while making
Making love, making sense
Making truth of the half-revealed
Do not judge me as plebeians judge
For you have seen me as I am
Willing, vulnerable, defiant
Willing to die in your laps
As I bring life to you

May I tell a lie with the truth?
I love you, but I don’t own you
I own what you give me
I return to you what you give to me
Not hope. Not promise.
But desire that deafens the loudest doubts
I am for you, in you, with you
Every thrust, every caress, every wet sigh
To arrive in you, I must go from you

These are the conversations within
When we grapple, when we joust
When we lay because we are we.
Don’t disappoint with sad questions like
‘So what are we?’ like a maiden far from the farm
‘What are we not?’ is a woman’s conversation with a man
‘Why are we not less?’ is a man’s conversation with a woman
Accept this broken promise, this addled suggestion
‘I want you as I want you.’
Changes will change you
Changes will change how I want you
Will you have me as I want to have you?
Curves, breath, and sighs?
But that is a conversation that leads to meeting again