Against Heaven ["I used to pray to a man-faced god"]
By Kemi Alabi
I used to pray to a man-faced god.
Kept his whip beneath my bed.
Set alarms for daybreak lashings.
Pressed white cotton to the flay.
Made flags of the bloodsoak.
Raised them from my window.
Called this worship.
Dreamt heaven a jury small as a county
where nobody looked like me.
Winged bailiffs plucked my cuffs
to trap my cousin in a hot coal cage.
Called this roulette freedom,
licking my raw wrists.
Which kill blew my tatters down.
Peeled me to the blackest jade.
Remothered me to the squad car blaze.
Loot and shard my siblings now.
Which kill. Forgive me.
I feared the devil’s prison.
Misfaithed the sheriff
in the sky. Why.
Which kill. Forgive me
family, I miscountried—
our swarming, anthem
of my true homeland.
Heaven and hell
are the same empire
half-slipped, gasping,
clutching our hems.
Ungoverned by the lie,
with fists and flames,
we cleave.
Copyright Credit: Kemi Alabi, "Against Heaven ("I used to pray to a man-faced god...")" from Against Heaven. Copyright © 2022 by Kemi Alabi. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.
Source: Against Heaven (Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org, 2022)