It’s 2013, but it feels a lot like 1932.
The way the wind blows, the smell of a fallen black body.
Each day, a reminder that our souls are still gasping for peace.
Monday.
There is beauty in the birth of a black soul, its capacity on earth, the way
the sun and moon rejoice at its presence; the way
the mother marvels at her masterpiece.
She tucks her black boy into her arms–
she is sure this one is all snake skin and rubber and bulletproof.
She is sure this one will make it.
Tuesday.
That black boy grew a target on his forehead
and his mother been tryna get it off for weeks.
She scrubs like she scrubs blood puddles off her doorstep.
Like she scrubs slave blood off her doorstep.
Not knowing that the only time that target goes away
is when a bullet hole is there to cover it up.
America has given birth to another dead soul.
She knows it’s a matter of time before the ground will be ready to swallow him whole.
Wednesday.
Her son screams and the sky echoes the sound of a fallen black boy.
All of a sudden it’s 1932 again.
There is a bitter taste in the wind and the ground feels like bodies–
like rope and bodies.
And no one budges, because this blood bath is too common.
Trees grow faces like angels, so the kids feel heavenly when they are hanging
from their branches.
Thursday.
Mothers go out the next morning to pick the fruit off the trees,
but never by themselves cause a black body is too heavy to pick alone.
This fruit can’t be eaten.
This fruit is not supposed to grow here.
Friday.
Black bodies ain’t safe here.
In 1932, in 2014.
They go to sleep hoping that sleep is forever, ‘cause it’s peaceful that way.
And as their pigment mimics the night sky,
you wonder if the sun is coming back to protect them.
The graves are flooding.
It’s 2019 again, and the graves are still flooding.
Saturday.
America is the recipe for secret genocide.
Another black body has fallen from the night sky.
We can’t remember their names, just the way
the rope sat so comfortably around their neck, the way
the bullets didn’t resist.
There are too many to count anymore.
Sunday.
There is beauty in the birth of a black soul, but not in its death.
There is never beauty in a black soul’s death, not even on a holy day.
There is beauty in the birth of a black soul.
But when the birth of a black soul equals their death in the same instance–
where’s the beauty in all of it?