Honey & Milk
by Tianna Gonzalez
Inspired by a drawing in Kara Walker's MCMXCIX
People have seen the white man like a gravedigger shoveling deep
into his field pushing aside dirt and crops just to find nothing valuable under where
are the bones he says whose marrow is honey
thick and sweet from bee stings that showed her hard work on the field
when her DNA helixes became honeycombs
her skin the darkest shade of honey in one of its hexagons
he watched her smell the sunflowers all day he loved her passiveness she
poured poured poured her honey jar dry for master
he would be on his knees hands up in the air begging for more
while the color was being drained from the left side of her face
still he made her do hard work still she was submissive
until she died on this field and left the grass sticky
to remember her touch there will be no one else like her no one else
every day he forgets where he buried her limbs that
he axed like branches on a tree
to hide his shame of his love
no one could know her belly was growing a beehive
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