Oh Rita...

I want to consume you
in my dreams but
You never stay long enough.
You just began your nightly
visits after my fifty years of grieving
your death.

We are in the third grade,
segregation long gone.
I enter the classroom
and there you are.
I hug you while my sobs
echo down the halls.

Agony mixed with the joy
of seeing you again.
We go to the beach and play
in foamy waves.
We traverse our desires,
wherever they take us.

We cling to each other
and explore every corner that was
your forbidden ground
when you were a living Black child.
Oh Rita, how I wish you could
see the changes.