It's Nothing - Bambara

I sleep through the violence of the city

But there’s a fly caught buzzing around my room

And then I drink in the violence and its stench

While I hide in bars from the moon

I don’t know

I don’t know

We were hollow and heavy

Falling lightly through a dream

Then you saw something moving

I said it’s nothing

Through the violence of the street

I walk around remembering in fits

There was a time

While you murmured nonsense in your sleep

I watched a fly land on your lower lip

I clenched my fist, but I could not swing at it

I don’t know

I don’t know

Take another pull with my head thrown back

And everything is chopped up and fluid like waves

Now, slowed down, all images become beautiful

Rat tails twitch like dancing things

Even Orion seems alright

Wavering on the wet trash outside

Wings sprout out of my lower back and I hover

Buzzing, above the bar

I look down to where you would be sitting

Tear-streaked cheekbones

And I see you as an old black shed

We were hollow and heavy

Falling lightly through a dream

Then you saw something moving

I said it’s nothing