for Dominique
I know this
from looking
into store fronts
taste buds voguing
alight from the way
treasure glows
when I imagine
pressing its opulence
into your hand
I want to buy you
a cobalt velvet couch
all your haters’ teeth
strung up like pearls
a cannabis vineyard
and plane tickets
to every island
on earth
but my pockets
are filled with
lint and love alone
touch these inanimate gods
to my eyelids
when you kiss me
linen leather
gator skin silk
satin lace onyx
marble gold ferns
leopard crystal
sandalwood mink
pearl stiletto
matte nails and plush
lips glossed
in my 90s baby saliva
pour the glitter
over my bare skin
I want a lavish life
us in the crook
of a hammock
incensed by romance
the bowerbird will
forgo rest and meals
so he may prim
and anticipate amenity
for his singing lover
call me a gaunt bird
a keeper of altars
shrines to the tactile
how they shine for you
fold your wings
around my shoulders
promise me that
should I drown
in want-made waste
the dress I sink in
will be exquisite
From Hull (Nightboat Books, 2019). Copyright © 2019 Xan Phillips. Used with permission of Nightboat Books, nightboat.org.
I should have thought in a dream you would have brought some lovely, perilous thing, orchids piled in a great sheath, as who would say (in a dream), "I send you this, who left the blue veins of your throat unkissed." Why was it that your hands (that never took mine), your hands that I could see drift over the orchid-heads so carefully, your hands, so fragile, sure to lift so gently, the fragile flower-stuff-- ah, ah, how was it You never sent (in a dream) the very form, the very scent, not heavy, not sensuous, but perilous--perilous-- of orchids, piled in a great sheath, and folded underneath on a bright scroll, some word: "Flower sent to flower; for white hands, the lesser white, less lovely of flower-leaf," or "Lover to lover, no kiss, no touch, but forever and ever this."
Copyright © 1982 by the Estate of Hilda Doolittle. Used with permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this poem may be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the publisher.
I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired
She meant
No more turned cheek
No more patience for the obstruction
of black woman’s right to vote
& plant & feed her family
She meant
Equality will cost you your luxurious life
If a Black woman can’t vote
If a brown baby can’t be fed
If we all don’t have the same opportunity America promised
She meant
Ain’t no mountain boulder enough
to wan off a determined woman
She meant
Here
Look at my hands
Each palm holds a history
of the 16 shots that chased me
harm free from a plantation shack
Look at my eyes
Both these are windows
these little lights of mine
She meant
Nothing but death can stop me
from marching out a jail cell still a free woman
She meant
Nothing but death can stop me from running for Congress
She meant
No black jack beating will stop my feet from working
& my heart from swelling
& my mouth from praying
She meant
America! you will learn freedom feels like
butter beans, potatoes & cotton seeds
picked by my sturdy hands
She meant
Look
Victoria Gray, Anna Divine & Me
In our rightful seats on the house floor
She meant
Until my children
& my children’s children
& they babies too
can March & vote
& get back in interest
what was planted
in this blessed land
She meant
I ain’t stopping America
I ain’t stopping America
Not even death can take away from my woman’s hands
what I’ve rightfully earned
Copyright © 2019 by Mahogany Browne. Originally featured in Vibe. Used with permission of the author.