No one gives a damn about a poem
until they need a poem. The poet
is a poem. My mother is a poem.
Women are poems. Black women
are poems. Black people are poems
who need poems. Black labour is a
poem another person will say they
wrote. Black babies are weeds.
No one thinks a fat person is a poem.
At most, an anthem. Disability poems
can be read when an abled person says so.
The urge toward poetry is a type of soil.
A Black death is a poem we clamour to
sing. What I said before about Black people
is a half poem. Black intellect is a diving
board. A wellspring. A tornado. A patient
lava. Black poems show you everything
about the world you claim to love. Love
is a muscle the poem exercises, or not.
A weed in the mouth of the poem is a fruit.