Mixed
I pray on my great GrandFather’s feathers —the ones you don’t respect— That you never dare call me Mixed when i have been a nigger anytime you felt like it. I’m from an army of glowing yellow/black princesses some of us indigenous. we know. even if the full-blood family don’t claim us. We all one caste system away from spiritual death. i’m mixed. ? I’m mixed with Moors and anybody from Alabama I’m mixed with kool milds & sometimes cigars british tea & southern comfort Apartheid & Jim Crow My shoe shine black no shield, no mask—nothing removeable. I’ve always taken my blackness to dinner Worn it in the shower, shared it with my lovers Never asked permission to be who I am Or changed my voice to fit the description land the job not scare away the boys body still recovering from the thunderous pull of a Jamaican crowd hauling me down into their sea of calabash eyes They tell me they feel my spirit in their Treasure Beach chest. I know you didn’t hear it Your seashell speaker remains broken or maybe you just pretend not to hear my leveed lips. Water when it’s rising In winter black girls are bright super moons waiting for you to notice. they glow twice as beautiful inside infinity a quiver of cold breath pushes out our bodies It’s winter in america, again; the subtle sound of survival. a wolf howls at the indifferent morning we are always mourning. in black. we don’t choose this pain. these colors. We swallow our ivory keys Our sharps & flats, an enharmonic black scream: Mixed. The way Ponchai Sankofa Wilkerson held a key Under his tongue and spit it out before they executed him We know freedom. Is just one fuck you Away from being this poem. We didn’t choose to scrape samples of our organs back together sew what was left of America inside A matted flag woven beneath the delicate seams of our children Born into this madness Our bloodline threads unbeveled against each blue stitch I’ve worn these scars ’cross my face My entire life and when you asked how i got Them, I said “An angel touched me.” I earned the right to my own damn mythology What else do we have left our bodies reduced to all that matters inside fragile feminism courses. There is zero removal of this Nina Simone | Black. | My British born, Canadian raised mother never asked me to So, why you? She raised a black girl Who loved to read; put Alice Walker and Hansberry in my hands. I’m mixed buffalo & eagle hampton & hooks Tear gas & Standing Rock Front line women & crooks mixed holocaust & genocide horses & low-rides I survived. This poem is my proof of life Your paperwork, never worked. I understand why you worry when A drop of blood swims back to shore Moore babies |black| as me.
From We Want Our Bodies Back by jessica Care moore. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins. Copyright © 2020 by jessica Care moore.
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