I'm waiting to write the perfect poem about Cape Verde,
a poem rolling up full and overripe as a Caravaggio still life
in the heavy voice of the barefoot goddess,
weighted with the sad, sandy hopes of rain.

For now, I only have this poem, and the swollen expectancy
of future poems that understand what Cesaria is saying
as well as what she means when her voice spills
its bruised body over the piano.