The Black Unicorn: Poems

and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive

A Litany for Survival For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures like bread in our children's mouths so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours: For those of us who were imprinted with fear like a faint line in the center of our foreheads learning to be afraid with our mother's milk for by this weapon this illusion of some safety to be found the heavy-footed hoped to silence us For all of us this instant and this triumph We were never meant to survive. And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.

...may I never lose that terror that keeps me brave

I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic

I have died too many deaths that were not mine.

my body writes into your flesh the poem you make of me. "Recreation

see me now your severed daughter laughing our name into echo all the world shall remember

I am tired of writing memorials to black men whom I was on the brink of knowing weary like fig trees weighted like a crepe myrtle with all the black substance poured into earth before earth is ready to bear. I am tired of holy deaths of the ulcerous illuminations the cerebral accidents the psychology of the oppressed where mental health is the ability to repress knowledge of the world’s cruelty.

It has rained for five days running the world is a round puddle of sunless water where small islands are only beginning to cope a young boy in my garden is bailing out water from his flower patch when I ask him why he tells me young seeds that have not seen sun forget and drown easily.

I am the sun and moon and forever hungry the sharpened edge where day and night shall meet and not be one. from “From the House of Yemanjá,

places do not change so much as what we seek in them

[…] your smile has been to war

As the light wanes I see what I thought I was anxious to surrender I am only willing to lend

The black unicorn was mistaken for a shadow or symbol and taken through a cold country where mist painted mockeries of my fury.

I did not recognize the shape of my own name.

young seeds that have not seen sun forget and drown easily.

I am tired of writing memorials to black men whom I was on the brink of knowing weary like fig trees weighted like a crepe myrtle with all the black substance poured into earth before earth is ready to bear. I am tired of holy deaths of the ulcerous illuminations the cerebral accidents the psychology of the oppressed where mental health is the ability to repress knowledge of the world's cruelty.

I come like a woman who I am spreading out through nights laughter and promise and dark heat warming whatever I touch that is living consuming only what is already dead.