Middle Passage, after Countee Cullen's "Middle Passage"

It said “Go back to Africa” in red ink

On the way to her shores my feet tangle

And that night I did.

in scum-covered shackles on the ocean floor. 

I did after throwing the red brick back out through the shards

In languages I have never heard

And wiped my daddy’s bloody head

pale ghosts in the air howl on hovering phantom rigs,

obscuring my Polaris.

And put out the flames on our lawn

Coiling rope, alive and writhing fades at her brink. 

And stopped baby brother from crying

Foam in the surf wraps around my ankles.

And told Big Ma to stop screaming

The multitude of tribes before me stand.

In their faces nothing my own and

everything my own.

In my face, all of Africa.

and pulled the rough twinning from the tree…

In French and English, German,

they each take their turn,

and tell me to go home.

I did.

*This is my poetry. Please do not copy the text, reuse it or plagiarize. Thanks!

*Artwork by Tom Feelings (May 19, 1933 - August 25, 2003)

Donuts at Balboa Street Laundry

On Sundays we walk to the Laundromat
And you buy me melting glazed donuts
and milk with a straw to keep me calm
while I sit on my favorite beige dryer
bouncing my jelly sandals against the vibrating metal.

While you crouch in the corner with your nursing books
and vacantly rub your lashes,
wishing that the sound of the dryer
were only a whir in the basement
and that you could brush the bangs from my eyes
while we eat donuts together at the kitchen table,

I wish that daddy could’ve seen how pretty you are with rainbow lint in your hair,
and that the warmth at my bottom never goes away
and that you never forget how to kiss the crusted sugar on my lips.




*This is my poetry. Please do not copy the text, reuse it or plagiarize. Thanks!