in homage to William Carlos Williams

Vermilion. Orange. Two shirts 
on two darkskinned boys on a bench in the summer park. 
Trees are less green than the drum like a long gourd 
one pounds with the heels of his palms. 
                                                                The other 
has twin small drums his fingers tap like a lover's 
fondling 
                a girl's hard little breasts. 
Slow, the long 
                           drum 
                                      booms; 
the twin drums flutter and snap. Rhythms 
hot as an orange shirt 
                                    open 
                                             on cocoa-colored skin, 
rhythms 
                bold as a vermilion shirt 
under a black face blind with consummation. 
Brilliance mates with brilliance 
                                                   to assert 
wealth as of tropical suns. The colors drum 
like the heartbeats of boys flooded with salt joy, 
with health shouting like Nile and Niger and Zambezi in tumult 
    and unison. 
It strikes the streets dumb, 
                                             the dusty park 
hears only the speech of two shirts 
on two dark drumming boys. Orange. Vermilion.