Fantasy under the Moon (Blues for a muted trumpet) by Emmanuel Dongala

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I climbed towards you on a ray of moonlight

that filtered through a hole in my straw-thatched house

When I had reached the smiling arch of your mouth among the

stars

you came to me

open under the sea of your body the heaving wave under my body

my heart beating to the rhythm of yours moving to the rhythm of

your tribe the people of the mountain;

your serpent form writhing beneath mine

I sucked your cobra’s poison from your broken lips

and my fever mounted like a sickness.

I visited last night our banana grove of the first time.

When I reached those great sombre aisles

under which we pressed each other behind your mother’s back

under the teasing trumpet of thirsty mosquitoes

the circle of my arms about your shadow your phantom

all at once hung emptier than the rope of a wine-tapper

embracing the palm tree.

I don’t know why that large cloud crossing the moon

suddenly made the tide of your body fall.

Like oiled wrestlers at a festival

who feel their adversary slide between their arms

powerless I felt you slip from mine

under the moon’s light white as this wine as your teeth which made

you so gay

as you fluttered wildly in the circle of the dance

while your mother warned you not to come near me.

I looked up at the sky from the depths of my hut;

the moon was only a smile, your white smile congealed.