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& we say to her
what have you done with our kin you swallowed?
& she says
that was ages ago, you’ve drunk them by now
& we don’t understand
& then one woman, skin dark as all of us
walks to the water’s lip, shouts Emmett, spits
&, surely, a boy begins
crawling his way to shore
Copyright © Danez Smith. Used with permission of the author.
somewhere, a sun. below, boys brown
as rye play the dozens & ball, jump
in the air & stay there. boys become new
moons, gum-dark on all sides, beg bruise
-blue water to fly, at least tide, at least
spit back a father or two. i won’t get started.
i don’t know how, but surely, & then again
the boy, who is not a boy, & i, who is barely
me by now, meld into a wicked, if not lovely
beast, black lacquered in black, darker
star, sky away from the sky, he begs, or
is it i beg him to beg, for me to open,
which i do, which i didn’t need to be asked
a thousand years of daughters, then me.
what else could i have learned to be?
girl after girl after giving herself to herself
one long ring-shout name, monarchy of copper
& coal shoulders. the body too is a garment.
i learn this best from the snake angulating