Black History Month, Poetry Edition

America Gives Its Blackness Back To Me
~Shane McCrae

The shadow I had carried lightly has

Been forced upon me now and heavy since

Bulky since     now and since unwieldy as

A corpse the shadow I     was born from in


And to I     should have known I couldn’t being

As how it wasn’t me who lifted it

Not     all the way     from me in the first place being

As how its lightness after was a gift


Its near-     bodilessness a gift     from those

Who bind it to me now I should have known

I couldn’t while they watched me     set it loose


They bind it     to my back they make it strange

That I knew     in my arms they weigh it down

With the shadow they had kept the bindings in