“I told myself, Thank goodness those poets proclaimed Black is beautiful, because now I can talk about how Black is everything.”

You prefer me invisible, no more than
a crisp salute far away from
your silks and firewood and woolens.

A bench, a sofa, anyplace flat—
just let me down
somewhere quiet, please,
a strange lap, a patch of grass . . .

The sky is not a glass of anything;
it winks, it’s a parable,
the kind your mother told whenever

Homepage image courtesy of Egres73, Wikimedia Commons

On the radio a canary bewailed her luck
while the county outside was kicking with rain.
The kids bickered in the back seat;

It is Sunday, day of roughhousing. We are let out in the woods. The young boys wrestle and butt their heads together like sheep—a circle forms; claps and shouts fill the air. The women, brown and glossy, gather round the banjo player, or simply lie in the sun, legs and aprons folded.