Hmm! that lanky smile on your face

Squeeze it underneath your father’s pillow

Call his woes a bridge to your next orbit

Foot, taste on them before his night turns grey

Allow him to speak more than you will ever listen?

 

White faces

White fences

White concoctions

White intentions gawking

White finds home in the black sand too

 

How come everyone speaks of the runaways?

Soft feet, textured in the grieves that beholden

A spade to call one’s own, humbled knees abide

Nourish your mind with the memories of your lust

Marinate their thoughts with the shades of being

Then exit, and watch every door fall behind you

 

Your mother you hear her speak

Even when she lays asleep in her bed

She’s only your mother because she birthed you

Screeching to the end of the rope she holds onto

She too is a fish rotating in the same social bowl

 

They don’t write books about women like her

The ones who gather wood and lit their own fires

The demure Peacocks stripped off of every feather

Too broken, but still stretches their womb for men

 

But this woman, she fathers you now

She is home for no one except for herself only

Gathering your unwanted and trying to want it now

barb-wired tongue flickering, no prayers could save you?

Which part of hers is your beak and which of his are your wings?

 

Black voices

Black impulses

Black fences falling apart?

Black rivers turning utterly silent?

Black is free only as long as he gallops?

Black stoops too short she bleeds again?

 

Who is to be blamed for this rusting?

This forever newness wavering in the distance?

One too cold to have missed out on living free?

When the children wake up again, they’ll trudge?

Ask which side they’ll stand between our fences?

Must we say we’ve been ambushed by our wounds?

 

Must we say we didn’t see this coming?

Must we say we didn’t see this coming?

Must WE?