III

One must have sullen wits
to foot the jungle
like another darkness
because of heimweh
and an air spiced
with big fruit.
The bamboos shiver
and the tattooed bird caws
to the rose-chafer in the moon.
It's mumbo-jumbo banging a tom-tom,
his black feet straggling
in the thrum of oil palms.
Ivory hunters with a tree mask
come up the river.
There are many apes.
In the tiger country
beyond the grain
the black one
rolls her pubes.

The continent is waterbound
and one
outside the singer in the shack
and Sambo, fat cigar
in heaven,
chucks the white dice
gravely with a black crow.