Poetry:
b.g. thomas
big black wall
a black woman must not ever assume that a smile means anything other than/ she is being
sized up by the other/ to see where she stands/ how strong she might be/ what her heart
might be made of/ that’s only if the other is accepting that black people are indeed made of
flesh and blood and feeling/ a black woman must never assume that she
belongs to anyplace other than a welfare line or/ housing project or/ hotel lobby wearing a
maids uniform or/ flipping burgers at mickey d’s and/ coming home to dem kids
a black woman must remember she is not privy to anything other than the role she is
assigned/ she must watch her tongue/ must not speak out/ must not stand her ground as
this is a crime it is proof of their violent nature or/ overdeveloped male side/ don’t cry/
depression is not possible/ nor is fear/ accept doing what’s be the demand/
don’t be angry/
you have no right to be anything other than a/ stone wall/ opaque
don’t be anything other than black
if i would
come as at odds with myself/ and
not at odds with self
come pulling self from birth/
matter
removing/ extracting/ detaching
shedding soft scraps/ tissue/ blood /bits
of fibrous flesh from skin/
peeling back to find myself/ i come
bruising the surface/ desiring
to exist as both muse and mystic creation
goddess material/ a thing of
quick wit and wisdom
a thing of reverence / i come
desiring to be/ needing to be/ both
the staff of significance garnering song/ story
made mention not maid mention nor
head-rag draped / carrying nations on hips/
mammary glanded/ skin vilified / stultified/
stuplified
i come knowing myself to be of
star dust/ goddess dust/
mythical dust of mysterious origin
of more than this history assigned to me
and my kind/ of this i
come knowing/ needing
come as this
that i might have room or time given to
complaint of being pedestaled and objectified
mid migration
brunt orange wings beat the wind
in pairs by the thousands
swooping down to dine on the remains
of a dead raccoon
rising up again to greet the ending summer sun
pelting the window leaving strange marks
and i wonder what mark was left by philando
in the space of that moment between
or terence or michael or keith
thirty four percent
two hundred and fifty eight
in one year but there is no problem here
the monarchs are smaller than they used to be
pesticide in water
one state burns another suffocates another drowns
terence and alton and sandra
symone and gynnya and darnesha and Yvette
on the ground orange winged danaus plexippus
hoovering over in mid migration
b.g. thomas currently resides in Macy, Nebraska, with extended family including three barking members and four bossy, moody, occasionally evil bosses who punish the peasants by depositing things in the laundry. thomas’ work has appeared in GNU, The Warren, Dryland, and several anthologies.
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