__________ my loved blacknesses & some blacknesses I knew
especially the rarest kind / or the kind named Priscilla G & not drowning
in bleach cream / creamy spin / but spinning blades on a black Nina
gunship in the gargantuan ghetto / not killing & maiming my brothers & potential
husbands / when the working mothers give up & when they do not
& when boys in their mad survivalist tactics
want a movie sex parade / silk-edging their sweaty fists in 30 watt lit basements
just because / death switch of a future /
none of that has to do with any kind of blackness or a crazed horizon
in the plumed summers of Los Angeles wherein television reenactments of real
fathers didn't occur enough for news sidebars / but more than generally believed /
they showed up to dailiness / cash in hand but as the school year revved up
the rest of the madness had nowhere to hide / ballooned horizon /
chemical concerns / fire up the blue turbines / fire up
unconscious intention plus the acne of ignorance / on the city's glittery filth façade
but not because of blackness / not for me /
when I would get home sometimes there might be food
sometimes just blackness I could live on / which I love
Copyright Credit: Khadijah Queen, "__________My Loved Blacknesses & Some Blacknesses I Knew." Copyright © 2015 by Khadijah Queen. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (PoetryNow, 2015)