Ana-Maurine Lara
To be Black is
To say goodbye
And hope one will return,
Mother do not cry.
At death’s door, I do not pry.
I do not yearn
To say goodbye
Trust that I do not try
To white anger churn
Mother, do not cry.
Today, I do not aim to die
Though the morn take a sudden turn
To say goodbye.
And, if death comes, let there be an outcry
May my killers be unturned.
Mother, do not cry.
May my name be held high,
May justice discern.
To say goodbye,
Mother, do not cry.
Mantle
Probing folds of flesh
I parse the sinew
from tissue, from bone
search the viscera
for traces of a core,
who I once was, could
have been, would have
been, could be before,
before –
In the gloom and umbra
of blood, of flesh
dismemberment re-member
rope and whip
muzzle and shackle
the cuts
the stench
the salt
the decomposing mantle.
STP TKG LND. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP TKG LND. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP KLNG BLK PPL. STP DTNS. STP BNS. STP KLNG NTV WMN. STP WR N PR PPL. STP JST STP KLNG DTNG DSPRG US.
Untitled.
There are children in cages
All across the land.
Barb wire curls
Across dawn’s horizon.
All across the land
There are cages and cages,
Across dawn’s horizon,
Filled with children. Children.
There are cages and cages,
Brushed nickel fences
Filled with children. Children.
Mother Earth groans.
Brushed nickel fences,
Barb wire curls –
Mother Earth groans,
“There are children in cages.”
What We Know
RA
A$
CORP$
IN UNI
SUCKERS
MEANS YOU.
Big Boi
~for Trayvon Martin
The first time the dog ran free
it searched the bushes for scraps of meat
perhaps a piece of fruit.
Not that he was hungry, he was simply
a dog.
Victory at the bend: the perfect loot
a rind of watermelon, a pork bone, still warm.
The second time the dog broke loose
he returned to this site of riches.
A man peered through the window
following his every move, noting
how he growled at squirrels, still
a dog.
Busy with the chicken bones and bread
he did not notice the man, or the noose.
The third time the dog jumped the gate
he wandered cautiously, left
the neighborhood ending up
at the corner store.
He walked home with half
a hot dog,
saliva dripping from his jaw.
He was fulfilled.
And it was in that moment,
that brief taste of bliss
a dog
eating
a hot dog
that the man, unrelenting, called his name
and he turned:
the bullet killed him, instantly.
América
Una mujer - corpulent, robust -
stretches her body
from the silver sun of the Arctic
to the blazing blue of Antarctica.
Her head arches towards Siberia;
Her hips roll towards the bite of Benin.
She lies awake at night; at daybreak
her heart is a rising peak in the yielding
waves of the Caribbean.
In her mouth, she holds
the ebb and flow of bright waters.
The rivers that are her blood rise
from her lungs to pulse inside our flesh,
our flesh of fish
and bird, and otter.
I do not speak for América,
I cannot contain América.
The cihuatl holds me against her back,
the skin of me against her skin, a skin
drawn taught against the wind of deserts.
My breath rises with her aches and joys,
my heart seeking hers. I swim in her navel,
full of star light and then of rainbows.
Her body, meadow and brittle bone,
a carapace and wings, is magical.
I do not speak for América,
I cannot contain América.
La vieja’s rage gives way to violent fits;
Coughs draw her flesh
up into mountains; they shake loose
the soil from leaves of grass,
the bluffs shudder and descend.
The moon draws molten blood out
onto the surface, to stain the beds of lakes
and to cool against the sea.
The sun makes her thirsty.
I do not speak for América,
I cannot contain América.
Machines tear at bibi’s underbelly.
Her knobbed skin gives way,
like vellum it peels back to reveal
the tenderness of her.
They rub her raw. She bleeds,
sore and wanting
of nothing but respite.
She inhales. The wind
lifts dust from her exposed flesh;
our bodies are covered
in remnants.
I do not speak for América,
I cannot contain América.
Ki sa ou vle? Fanm mande, what
more do you want from this paradise,
this heaven of iron, steel and coal?
Her bougainvillea cascade
onto asphalt at sunset; her mesquite
withers at noon; her sage brush
vanishes in a horizon of tawny wheat;
her cotton bolls dampen with the dew;
her cane stalks bend in the wake of hurricanes;
her tubers split open and grow,
and grow and grow.
I do not speak for América,
I cannot contain América.
Nor the vastness of her plains and pampas
Nor the evidence of her broken flesh
Nor the stretch of her waters and seas
Nor the grumble of her midnight aches
Nor the lushness of her forests and jungles
Nor the way her waters churn
Nor the beauty of her ice-covered limbs
Nor her many, many names.
Originally published in Who Will Speak for America? Stephanie Feldman and Nathaniel Popkin, 2018.