True Story

They say I write black

and love death and madness.

Art is for the few.

The rare as poets, mutes

or the survivors of surgery.

I am speaking of blood matters,

passion, risking everything,

leaving a husband and children

(this is a true story)

to fly to Caracas

with a part-time dance

instructor named Ramon.

I woke up broke

in an speakable port

regretting nothing.

I lived for his cha-cha

his rumba, the light

glancing off his pointed

and shined black shoes.

We boogied for months.

From Buenos Aires

to Lima.

We crossed the Andes twice.

I would die to get this poem

to rush like a drug.

Always some will refuse.

Will keep their secret names

and other dimensions.

Their abundant, unyielding

infinite childhood.

The vivid season of edgeless birth.

What would you die for?

From “Hurricane Warnings” (Illuminati Press, Los Angeles, Calif.: $9.95, paper; 88 pp.). Braverman is the author of two previous collections of poems, “Milk Run” and “Lullaby for Sinners” and a novel, “Lithium for Medea.” Her second novel, “Palm Latitudes,” will be published this summer by Simon & Schuster.