Black History Month, for all the other Black souls we did not protect or defend

 The Lost Woods as Elegy for Black Childhood
~Derrick Austin

There used to be no one here,
where cypresses and oaks play
shadow puppets on sawgrass.

You heard the music before
I did: tambourines, pan pipes.
Remember how I woke clean

to meet you each morning?
The dew and the dust?
Remember how you’d catch me

as I fell from trees? Someone
heard and hurt us. I’m Black-Eyed
Pea. You’re just Skull Kid.

We wanted our genius to last.
We never wanted chalkboards
or snow. We never came home

before the streetlights buzzed.
All we do is dance in leaves.
Cackle and Dreaming, we call it.

Our mothers call it grief.

Copyright © 2016 by Derrick Austin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 27, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.

About This Poem

“In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a video game I loved as a child, the lost woods is a maze-like level full of music that transformed children who wandered in into monsters known as skull kids. Though they were trapped forever, they always looked like they were having fun playing flutes and being tricksters. I wrote this poem thinking about Korryn Gaines’s son, thinking about the nightmare of racial violence and about what space allows black children to dream and play without fear."
—Derrick Austin

Black History Month, it is not over

 Skin Tight
~Ishmael Reed

The internal organs were growling
According to them
They did all of the work while
Skin got all of the attention
He’s an organ just like us
They groused
Even the heart, which, a
Century ago, was the Queen
Of metaphors, but now
Was reduced to the greetings
Cards section of CVS,
Chimed in

They decided to call skin
On the carpet.
Skin arrived from Cannes
Where he’d been the subject
Of much fuss as actresses
Fed him luxurious skin
Food prepared by Max Factor
Estée Lauder, L’Oreal,
And Chanel
They
Caressed him daily
Sometimes for hours before
They made the red carpet
Shine

He was petted
And preened

Others
Pleaded with him
To erase wrinkles to
Make them look younger
To tighten their chins

Skin tried to appease the
Critics, greeting them with
His familiar “give me some skin”
But his gesture went unheeded

Brain did all the talking
Brain said, “Here’s the skinny
Why do you get
All of the press
Your color
Your texture discussed
Endlessly
Nicole Kidman never

Did an ad about us

Cole Porter never
Wrote a song about us
Nor were we mentioned
In a Thornton Wilder novel
You’ve given us no
Skin in the game”

“What about the nasty
Things they say about
Me,” skin replied
“What about skin deep
For superficiality
Or
Skin trade
To denote something
Unsavory

How would you
Like acne rashes
Eczema

Boils
Pellagra
Leprosy
And
Conditions
That astonish
Even dermatologists

I wear my blemishes
In public while you guys
Hide yours”

“Without me and heart
You’d be nothing,” the brain said
“That’s not true,” protested
The liver, “without me he’d
Be nothing”
“No,” the kidney said
“It’s me who keeps the
Body functioning”
The bladder and
The kidney began
To quarrel with
Gallbladder
The lung twins spoke
Up
“Without us
He couldn’t breathe”
Even the esophagus
And the thyroid
And the pancreas
Joined the outbreak
“What about us?”

The eyes said
“Without eyes you
Can’t see”

Their squabble distracted
Them
When they looked
Up from their dust up
Skin’s
Helicopter was up
He was scheduled to
Address a convention of
Plastic surgeons at
The Beverly Hills
Hotel
Escaping by the skin
Of his teeth
His opponents gave
Chase
But above the roar
Of the chopper
They heard him say
“Don’t worry fellas
I got you covered”

Copyright © 2021 by Ishmael Reed. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 26, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poetry Thursday, Black History Month: music that heals

 Songs for the People
~Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Let me make the songs for the people,
   Songs for the old and young;
Songs to stir like a battle-cry
   Wherever they are sung.

Not for the clashing of sabres,
   For carnage nor for strife;
But songs to thrill the hearts of men
   With more abundant life.

Let me make the songs for the weary,
   Amid life’s fever and fret,
Till hearts shall relax their tension,
   And careworn brows forget.

Let me sing for little children,
   Before their footsteps stray,
Sweet anthems of love and duty,
   To float o’er life’s highway.

I would sing for the poor and aged,
   When shadows dim their sight;
Of the bright and restful mansions,
   Where there shall be no night.

Our world, so worn and weary,
   Needs music, pure and strong,
To hush the jangle and discords
   Of sorrow, pain, and wrong.

Music to soothe all its sorrow,
   Till war and crime shall cease; 
And the hearts of men grown tender
   Girdle the world with peace.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 8, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, not Poetry Thursday #sayhername every day

 Naming the Baby
~Yesenia Montilla
I couldn’t bring myself
to read through Breonna’s social 
media but some say she believed 2020
would be her year. She even
imagined a baby growing steady
in her belly. I imagine her choosing
the baby’s name with care. Taking
all the months she had to name it
something like Pearl or V or Cheryl
There are a million baby names 
to choose from the good book
but what do you name
the baby that never would be
in the year that should’ve been
yours? Do you name her
Revolution? Do you name her
A World Screaming? Do you
name her Fire? Let her burn
             the house down—

Copyright © 2021 by Yesenia Montilla. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 24, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, not Poetry Thursday

 breathe we
~Juan Felipe Herrera

breathe for George Floyd we
 
breathe for compassion we
do not know what that is we

another black man holy we
gone now George Floyd we
Ahmaud running street endless we
America scream & love we
 
do not know what love is we
breathe George Floyd flames we
 
next to you on a sp halt cho  ke we
knee Am Am

e      ri                   c        a w e

Copyright © 2020 by Juan Felipe Herrera. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 14, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, Poetry Edition: so gorgeous

 Give Your Daughters Difficult Names
~Assétou Xango

“Give your daughters difficult names.

Names that command the full use of the tongue.

My name makes you want to tell me the truth.

My name does not allow me to trust anyone

who cannot pronounce it right.”

      —Warsan Shire

Many of my contemporaries,
role models,
But especially,
Ancestors

Have a name that brings the tongue to worship.
Names that feel like ritual in your mouth.

I don’t want a name said without pause,
muttered without intention.

I am through with names that leave me unmoved.
Names that leave the speaker’s mouth unscathed.

I want a name like fire,
like rebellion,
like my hand griping massa’s whip—

I want a name from before the ships
A name Donald Trump might choke on.

I want a name that catches you in the throat
if you say it wrong
and if you’re afraid to say it wrong,
then I guess you should be.

I want a name only the brave can say
a name that only fits right in the mouth of those who love me right,
because only the brave
can love me right

Assétou Xango is the name you take when you are tired
of burying your jewels under thick layers of
soot
and self-doubt.

Assétou the light
Xango the pickaxe
so that people must mine your soul
just to get your attention.

If you have to ask why I changed my name,
it is already too far beyond your comprehension.
Call me callous,
but with a name like Xango
I cannot afford to tread lightly.
You go hard
or you go home
and I am centuries
and ships away
from any semblance
of a homeland.

I am a thief’s poor bookkeeping skills way from any source of ancestry.
I am blindly collecting the shattered pieces of a continent
much larger than my comprehension.

I hate explaining my name to people:
their eyes peering over my journal
looking for a history they can rewrite

Ask me what my name means...
What the fuck does your name mean Linda?

Not every word needs an English equivalent in order to have significance.

I am done folding myself up to fit your stereotype.
Your black friend.
Your headline.
Your African Queen Meme.
Your hurt feelings.
Your desire to learn the rhetoric of solidarity
without the practice.

I do not have time to carry your allyship.

I am trying to build a continent,
A country,
A home.

My name is the only thing I have that is unassimilated
and I’m not even sure I can call it mine.

The body is a safeless place if you do not know its name.

Assétou is what it sounds like when you are trying to bend a syllable
into a home.
With shaky shudders
And wind whistling through your empty,

I feel empty.

There is no safety in a name.
No home in a body.

A name is honestly just a name
A name is honestly just a ritual

And it still sounds like reverence.

Copyright © 2017 by Assétou Xango. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 9, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, Poetry Edition, love song

 Beauty That is Never Old
~James Weldon Johnson 

When buffeted and beaten by life’s storms,
When by the bitter cares of life oppressed,
I want no surer haven than your arms,
I want no sweeter heaven than your breast.

When over my life’s way there falls the blight
Of sunless days, and nights of starless skies;
Enough for me, the calm and steadfast light
That softly shines within your loving eyes.

The world, for me, and all the world can hold
Is circled by your arms; for me there lies,
Within the lights and shadows of your eyes,
The only beauty that is never old.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 7, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

work

I have been doing some personal work over here.

It doesn't feel like I am getting anywhere on this work.

It's not to do list kind of work, well, maybe it is.

It is hard.

Exhausting.

Overwhelming.

It is work.

Most days I only have the strength left to pull myself into bed... even though what I really need to do is debrief.

I don't want to talk, so there is no relief there.

Writing would be a good outlet, but it makes the work even more real and thus scarier and more overwhelming.

I keep hoping that I will turn a corner on the work and it will feel lighter, more purposeful or even just done. I'd take partially done.

Instead, it feels like the pushing up the boulder and having it come crashing back on me.

Only it is larger every time it rolls back over me, flattening me.

I don't even have the emotional or physical energy to wander out in search of beauty.

I am just tired.

And tired of being tired.

And sad.

And tired of being sad.

Poetry Thursday, Black History Month

 on empathy

~Bettina Judd

what it sounds like is a bird breaking small bones against glass. the least of them, a sparrow, of course. you’re about to serve dinner and this is the scene. blame the bird, the impertinent windows, try not to think of the inconvenience of blood splattering violet in the dusk. how can you eat after this? do not think of whom to blame when the least of us hurdles into the next moment. a pane opening into another. the least of us spoiling your meal.

~

the smell of it will be smoke and rank. you will mutter about this for days, the injustice of splatter on your window. foolish bird. civilization. house with the view. fucking bird feeder. it will take you a week, while the flesh starts to rot under thinning feathers, while the blood has congealed and stuck, for you to realize that no one is coming to take the body. it is your dead bird. it is your glass. you have options you think. hire out. move out. leave it for the bigger blacker birds.

~

you will taste rotting just above the top of your tongue. so much, that you check yourself to make sure that it is not you. the bird deserves something. you go to the closet, pick out a shoe box. discount? designer? you start to think of how it has come to this: pondering your mortality through a bird. a dead bird. never-mind. you don’t find it a problem not running into windows.

~

it is an eyesore and we start to gather as large billows in your yard. you marvel at us, beautiful, collecting and loosening our dark bodies from white sky to your grass. and then it comes. more bones and blood. one by one crashing into the closed pane. mindless birds. brown and gray feathers. filthy pests. another. fucking feeder. we look like billions lifting into flight and then—shatter.

~

you might find a delicate humility in the art of cleaning glass. while you work, you sustain tiny slivers of opened flesh. tips of your fingers sing. shards, carnage, it has become too much. you are careful to pick up all that you can see. you call a repairman. you are careful to pick up all that you can see. you throw everything into big shiny trash bags. you are careful to pick up all that you can see. you consider french doors. you are careful to pick up all that you can see and find more with each barefoot trip through your bloodbath house.

Copyright © 2020 by Bettina Judd. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 7, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 did-you-just-say-thang theory
~Tiana Reid

I grew up on monopoly money and lucky charms
leftover hanukkah gelt from 
the friend who always
had things
in her family fridge
but what about those things
I bought with my own money
(pennies
             from
                      the
                             pavement),
the sour one-cent gummies, 
shaped like warped, warring men
they tasted hard and right
on the way
home from school.

(whispers, loudly: this is an ode to Rihanna)

what about those things?

(title for the thing: maybe “Repairing Rihanna”)
(or maybe: “Rihanna and Redress”)

hard-earned money in the
so-called smart city began to
get us
began to get us less things
the thing itself 
went public,
kicked back and relaxed 
meanwhile i am already so bored
i want to die

whenever I check my balance I hear voices
someone is owed! sing it, honey!
laaaadiiiidii, ladiidaa!  louder, honey!!!!
those automated sing-ah-longs…
make it count
make tech boom

a digital glitch is not the mistake
but rather that exact moment
the institution reproduces itself

and ugh.

Copyright © 2020 by Tiana Reid. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 4, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 Nothing
~Krysten Hill

I ask a student how I can help her. Nothing is on her paper.
It’s been that way for thirty-five minutes. She has a headache. 
She asks to leave early. Maybe I asked the wrong question. 
I’ve always been dumb with questions. When I hurt, 
I too have a hard time accepting advice or gentleness.
I owe for an education that hurt, and collectors call my mama’s house. 
I do nothing about my unpaid bills as if that will help. 
I do nothing about the mold on my ceiling, and it spreads. 
I do nothing about the cat’s litter box, and she pisses on my new bath mat. 
Nothing isn’t an absence. Silence isn’t nothing. I told a woman I loved her, 
and she never talked to me again. I told my mama a man hurt me,
and her hard silence told me to keep my story to myself. 
Nothing is full of something, a mass that grows where you cut at it. 
I’ve lost three aunts when white doctors told them the thing they felt 
was nothing. My aunt said nothing when it clawed at her breathing.
I sat in a room while it killed her. I am afraid when nothing keeps me 
in bed for days. I imagine what my beautiful aunts are becoming 
underground, and I cry for them in my sleep where no one can see. 
Nothing is in my bedroom, but I smell my aunt’s perfume 
and wake to my name called from nowhere. I never looked 
into a sky and said it was empty. Maybe that’s why I imagine a god 
up there to fill what seems unimaginable. Some days, I want to live 
inside the words more than my own black body. 
When the white man shoves me so that he can get on the bus first, 
when he says I am nothing but fits it inside a word, and no one stops him, 
I wear a bruise in the morning where he touched me before I was born. 
My mama’s shame spreads inside me. I’ve heard her say 
there was nothing in a grocery store she could afford. I’ve heard her tell 
the landlord she had nothing to her name. There was nothing I could do 
for the young black woman that disappeared on her way to campus. 
They found her purse and her phone, but nothing led them to her. 
Nobody was there to hold Renisha McBride’s hand 
when she was scared of dying. I worry poems are nothing against it. 
My mama said that if I became a poet or a teacher, I’d make nothing, but 
I’ve thrown words like rocks and hit something in a room when I aimed 
for a window. One student says when he writes, it feels 
like nothing can stop him, and his laugher unlocks a door. He invites me 
into his living.

Copyright © 2020 by Krysten Hill. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 7, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 Forget Me Not
~Ann Plato

When in the morning’s misty hour,
When the sun beams gently o’er each flower;
When thou dost cease to smile benign,
And think each heart responds with thine,
When seeking rest among divine,
                                    Forget me not.

When the last rays of twilight fall,
And thou art pacing yonder hall;
When mists are gathering on the hill,
Nor sound is heard save mountain rill,
When all around bids peace be still,
                                    Forget me not.

When the first star with brilliance bright,
Gleams lonely o’er the arch of night;
When the bright moon dispels the gloom,
And various are the stars that bloom,
And brighten as the sun at noon,
                                    Forget me not.

When solemn sighs the hollow wind,
And deepen’d thought enraps the mind;
If e’er thou doest in mournful tone,
E’er sigh because thou feel alone,
Or wrapt in melancholy prone,
                                    Forget me not. 

When bird does wait thy absence long,
Nor tend unto its morning song;
While thou art searching stoic page,
Or listening to an ancient sage,
Whose spirit curbs a mournful rage,
                                    Forget me not.

Then when in silence thou doest walk,
Nor being round with whom to talk;
When thou art on the mighty deep,
And do in quiet action sleep;
If we no more on earth do meet,
                                    Forget me not.

When brightness round thee long shall bloom,
And knelt remembering those in gloom;
And when in deep oblivion’s shade,
This breathless, mouldering form is laid,
And thy terrestrial body staid,
                                     Forget me not.

“Should sorrow cloud thy coming years,
And bathe thy happiness in tears,
Remember, though we’re doom’d to part,
There lives one fond and faithful heart,
                        That will forget thee not.”

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 2, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 Lines on Love’s (Loss*)
~Erica Hunt

what we do not dream we cannot manufacture

Art follows ear and echo

covers/chooses
selective
eyesight searches the dust
and is surprised by love’s
apophatic blinking


what love sees in daily light
holds open color—ink, roar, melody and quiet
is its own steady gaze
to better endure bumps


“always more song to be sung” between the words
jars memory and its subatomic _____________
moving at the speed of thought _____________
 
in random thirsts rise_____________
name the sensations, _________________
to fish for breath, ________________________________
combing through hair as tangled as nets, as__________________


thick as the beat of blossoms’ _____________
 
a fine line between mind and senses spinning ________
in which her/my/their body becomes expert________________
without waiting for unified theory,
 
loving the body of one’s choice and _________________________
 
to live so surrounded ______________________
with fewer asterisks and ____________________
more verbs and _____________________
fewer security alerts __________________
 
there eloquence before ____________________
and above
__________________the grave.
 

*For Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor

Copyright © 2020 by Erica Hunt. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 1, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 Dewdrops

~Myra Viola Wilds

Watch the dewdrops in the morning,

   Shake their little diamond heads,

Sparkling, flashing, ever moving,

   From their silent little beds.

See the grass! Each blade is brightened,

   Roots are strengthened by their stay;

Like the dewdrops, let us scatter

   Gems of love along the way.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 16, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, Poetry Thursday (a day late)

 Carnivorous, with a varied and opportunistic diet

~Daria-Ann Martineau

Call me lagahoo, soucouyant. Call me other.

I came ravenous: mongoose consuming

fresh landscapes until I made myself

new species of the Indies.

Christen me how you wish, my muzzle

matted with blood of fresh invertebrates.

I disappear your problems

without thought to consequence.

Call me Obeah. Watch me cut

through cane, chase

sugar-hungry rats. Giggling

at mating season, I grow fat

multiples, litters thick as tropic air.

Don’t you find me beautiful? My soft animal

features, this body streamlined ruthless,

claws that won’t retract. You desire them.

You never ask me what I want. I take

your chickens, your iguana,

you watch me and wonder

when you will be outnumbered.

My offspring stalking your village,

ecosystems uprooted, roosts

swallowed whole.

I am not native. Not domesticated.

I am naturalized, resistant

to snake venoms, your colony’s toxins—

everything you brought me to,

this land. I chew and spit back

reptile and bird bone

prophecy strewn across stones.

Copyright © 2020 by Daria-Ann Martineau. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 2, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 Benediction
~Georgia Douglas Johnson 

Go forth, my son,
Winged by my heart’s desire!
Great reaches, yet unknown,
Await
For your possession.
I may not, if I would,
Retrace the way with you,
My pilgrimage is through,
But life is calling you!
Fare high and far, my son,
A new day has begun,
Thy star-ways must be won!

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 6, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 My People
~Langston Hughes

Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughers in the hands of Fate—
           My People.
Dish-washers,
Elevator-boys,
Ladies’ maids,
Crap-shooters,
Cooks,
Waiters,
Jazzers,
Nurses of babies,
Loaders of ships,
Porters,
Hairdressers,
Comedians in vaudeville
And band-men in circuses—
Dream-singers all,
Story-tellers all.
Dancers—
God! What dancers!
Singers—
God! What singers!
Singers and dancers,
Dancers and laughers.
Laughers?
Yes, laughers….laughers…..laughers—
Loud-mouthed laughers in the hands of Fate.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 20, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 The Sun Went Down in Beauty
~George Marion McClellan

The sun went down in beauty
    Beyond the Mississippi side,
As I stood on the banks of the river
    And watched its waters glide;
Its swelling currents resembling
    The longing restless soul,
Surging, swelling, and pursuing
    Its ever receding goal.

The sun went down in beauty,
    But the restless tide flowed on,
And the phantom of absent loved ones
    Danced on the waves and were gone;
Fleeting phantoms of loved ones,
    Their faces jubilant with glee,
In the spray seemed to rise and beckon,
    And then rush on to the sea.

The sun went down in beauty,
    While I stood musing alone,
Stood watching the rushing river
    And heard its restless moan;
Longings, vague, intenable,
    So far from speech apart,
Like the endless rush of the river,
    Went surging through my heart.

The sun went down in beauty,
    Peacefully sank to rest,
Leaving its golden reflection
    On the great Mississippi’s breast;
Gleaming on the turbulent river,
    In the coming gray twilight,
Soothing its restless surging,
    And kissing its waters goodnight.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on July 4, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

Sunshine After Cloud
~Josephine D. Heard

Come, “Will,” let’s be good friends again, 
     Our wrongs let’s be forgetting, 
For words bring only useless pain, 
     So wherefore then be fretting. 

Let’s lay aside imagined wrongs, 
    And ne’er give way to grieving,
Life should be filled with joyous songs, 
    No time left for deceiving. 

I’ll try and not give way to wrath, 
    Nor be so often crying; 
There must some thorns be in our path, 
    Let’s move them now by trying. 

How, like a foolish pair were we, 
    To fume about a letter; 
Time is so precious, you and me; 
    Must spend ours doing better. 

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on September 6, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. 

Black History Month, Poetry Edition, I'm behind...

 [th(e)reat] → siege engine

~Trace Howard DePass

                                in my own body ← here i am a siege

                                overthrowing a home where no one lives

                                but me. i’m too big for my too big head

                                too barely anything for want, my love

                                built me from a nail in the wall galloped

                                to meet the socks on the floor → now a hole

                                in the wall i would peek thru & run some

                                cable thru so we all could watch cable.

                   now, there’s a good amount of good reasons

                   why no one lives here, no one lives with me.

                   my cat even tries to leave. he jumps out

                   the window, off the roof, & waits for me

                   to catch him with the neighbors. & i too

                   trynna be beautiful & loved this way.

i  ←  suppose: perching for life to begin

is this flatline moving me, failed, forward,

feathered closer to grace each time; going

mother after mother i wake up as

a dove picking lilies from her black i

suppose i love so i know i ain’t know

                brevity without withholding a breath  ←

                loved those flying ants,  infiltrating  thru  all  fronts’

                doors til i (w)as a room entered watching

                for  bites tender thicker  than all-time’s

                to consume ← consistency dragged → this long

                makes me  wanna bite bird feet  ← too   baby

                cat  i love you too,...   ache in my bones you

                remind me of  what is it(?) to be  picked ←

Copyright © 2020 by Trace Howard DePass. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 19, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, back posting

 Legacy
~Rhonda M. Ward

Now and then the phone will ring and it will be
someone from my youth. The voice of a favorite cousin
stretched across many miles sounding exactly as she always has:
that trained concentration of one who stutters—
the slight hesitations, the drawn-out syllables,
the occasional lapse into a stammer.

When asked, she says my aunt is well for her age but
she forgets. I remember the last time I saw my aunt—
leaning on her cane, skin smooth as river rock,
mahogany brown, gray hair braided into two plaits
stretched atop her head and held in place
with black bobby pins.

She called to say James Lee has died. And did I know
Aunt Mary, who had four crippled children
and went blind after uncle Benny died, died last year?

I did not.

We wander back awhile, reminding and remembering:

Me under the streetlight outside our front yard
face buried in the crook of my arm held close
to the telephone pole as I closed my eyes and sang the words:
Last night, night before, twenty-four robbers at my door
I got up to let them in... hit ‘em in the head with a rolling pin,
then counted up to ten while they ran and hid.

Visiting the graves of grandparents I never knew.
Placing blush-pink peonies my father grew and cut
for the occasion into mason jars. Saying nothing.
Simply staring at the way our lives come down
to a concrete slab.

Copyright © 2020 by Rhonda M. Ward. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 4, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

they say, I hear...

 They take advantage of my strength.

So sure are they that I will always bend and never break

So sure are they that I have infinite capacity to give, they take and take and take.

Even better, they criticize what I give. If only you...

I learned the hard way that I have to stand up for myself.

But when I do, I get labeled the asshole.

Ok, I'm an asshole.

Now what?

The truth is I cannot bend anymore.

I am at the breaking point, and they are still arguing about whether or not I gave enough, or in the right way, or if it doesn't matter because I wasn't smiling while I did it.

ok.

-------------------

Just be happy.

You can choose to just be happy.

Subtext: you're doing it wrong.

Ok, maybe that's not what they meant, but I am here to tell you, that's what I heard.

You see someone exhausted from life

What do you do?

Offer some more things that person should do

Offer a platitude, tomorrow is another day

You don't want to know what I think when I hear that.

-------------------

Shattered.

Broken into a million pieces.

No strength left to pick up each piece and try to fit it together - even if making a new picture is the only way out of the darkness.

Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Done.

I am not just frustrated, I'm tired of trying to make it all work.

This broken clock is not even right twice a day.

And, finally, when I feel like I cannot go on one more day, you care, kind of... 

I am only worthy of compassion or empathy if I am a pool of water on the floor

or a glass shattered beyond repair.

You could have listened any of the million times I told you explicitly or implicitly that I was drowning.

But you waited until I could not go on to demand that I must.

And I am supposed to be what? grateful?

I'm not, but I am an asshole, so it is not surprising.

Black History Month, back posting

 YOUR BRAIN IS NOT A PRISON!
~Sasha Debevec-McKenney

A prison is the only place that’s a prison.
Maybe your brain is a beehive—or, better:
an ants nest? A spin class?
The sand stuck in an hourglass? Your brain is like
stop it. So you practice driving with your knees,
you get all the way out to the complex of Little League fields,
you get chicken fingers with four kinds of mustard—
spicy, whole grain, Dijon, yellow—
you walk from field to field, you watch yourself
play every position, you circle each identical game,
each predictable outcome. On one field you catch.
On one field you pitch. You are center field. You are left.
Sometimes you have steady hands and French braids.
Sometimes you slide too hard into second on purpose.
It feels as good to get the bloody knee as it does to kick yourself in the shin.
You wait for the bottom of the ninth to lay your blanket out in the sun.
Admit it, Sasha, the sun helps. Today,
the red team hits the home run. Red floods every field.
A wasp lands on your thigh. You know this feeling.

Copyright © 2020 by Sasha Debevec-McKenney. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 26, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

Black History Month, day 1, back posting

 Denial is a Cliff We Are Driven Over
~Joy Priest

I want to believe Don West
when he writes: none of mine

ever made their living by driving slaves.
But in my grandfather’s mouth that utterance

would’ve taken on another meaning:
In the memory my mother shares,

he is flitting across Louisville
in his taxi, passing back-and-forth

like a cardinal, red-faced, proud-breasted,
delivering Black folks their dry cleaning—

had to, she tells me, as part of his route—
but once he started his second shift and turned

on the cab light, he wouldn’t accept
Black fare. I recall him reciting

the early presidents’
racist pseudoscience—American

at its liver—to rationalize his hatred
of my father, his denial

of my Blackness. That denial a peril
I survived, a cliff he could have driven me over

at any moment of my childhood. Maybe,
I want to think, because they were poor men

who labored, farmed tobacco and dug for oil,
my grandfather’s people resisted

slavery, felt a kinship with my father’s people.
Or that because my grandfather

was one of eleven mouths to feed
on their homestead—reduced to dirt

across the Great Depression—
he had a white identity to be proud of, a legacy

that didn’t join our names
in a bill of sale, but in struggle.

I search his surname and it travels
back to Germany, appears

on the deed to the house he inherited,
retired and died in, poor-white resentment

inflaming his stomach and liver.
But when I search the name I share with my father,

my only inheritance                      disappears
into the 19th century, sixth generation:

my ancestor bred
to produce 248 offspring

for his owner, from whence comes
our family name. Mr. West, here

we are different. Here, is where
my grandfather found his love for me discordant

as the voice of the dead whispering
history. Here is where we are connected,

not by class, but blood & slavery.

Copyright © 2020 by Joy Priest. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 28, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.