
No Dash Needed
I am not African-American
there’s no dash needed
if anything
I am
a native spook who sat by the door
listening for opportunity,
devout in my non
ever
shifting
identity
making lemonade.
I am not African-American
there’s no dash needed
if anything
I am
a native spook who sat by the door
listening for opportunity,
devout in my non
ever
shifting
identity
making lemonade.
why make me this way
all painted and poet brown
like black women sleeping in silk caps
praying it lays their hair flat
not born but bred
to carry the cotton sack
a touch away from the fairy tales
we tell ourselves
buried bones triple axle across a lake of frozen dreams
The way I’m is
I’ve loved left and leapt
changing my heart’s mind with the cool breeze of a whim
unable to warm my daughter’s hands
the invisible man,
whose breaths give him away in winter
I put on normalcy like a stiff cloak
to tackle the little anxieties of the day
at home, unsheathed and alone
I wonder aloud
Why I’m made this way
Smear this idea of fate
on with a thick brush
dipping in faith
to replenish the bristles
as I write the rest down
from my burning castle
I am a
black woman
my parents migrated from Paris
i speak three languages
i struggle everyday to raise my children
braid hair, day in and out
They call me Mama
I am a
turkish woman
in Germany, i want to pass on my customs
there are others like me
pushed into neighborhoods while our foods feed their stomachs
sometimes
They call me Outcast
I am
pakistani
i came to america a woman
praying on my knees to keep my sons free
my youngest shouts of foot baller dreams
i’ll go home one day and he’ll be there
They call me Hopeful
I am a
woman
i spend nights on the underside of the italian rivera
my smile is ethereal
no matter where i rome
They call me Real Sweet
dont ask me who i am, i
wont tell you, cant
& dont put your goddamn con–
descending paws around
me for the sake of
“existential brotherhood”
no words mean, thats why…
no words mean standing on a corner
in another world
no words mean…
(Someone falling
to his heart in filth)
or become because i wont become
(Rats rounding corners
like locomotives)
what you think i am
the only open door
is the door to man
—James A. Randall Jr.