before the war
on families
we were different
together
warm hands
deep voices
roses in the spring
melon in the summer
school clothes
car vacations
aunts uncles
grandpas’ & grannies
presents on Christmas morning
Easter dinner
church on new years eve
we were holding vigil
keeping the watch granny said
we remembered cotton
sunrise to sunset
hard working
in factories, construction,
in kitchens, garages
in slaughter yards
rail cars, ship yards
steel mills
work for willing hands
our hands were willing
school days learning
America from America
pledging allegiances
seeking assimilation
like a warm coat in
a winter that won’t end
cold water dreams &
hot water corn bread days
fathers in houses
holding us accountable
showing us what men
look like we saw we knew
we followed in footsteps
hoping to climb higher
we remembered cotton
we were determined
we pushed & got shoved back
heads high we sat down
we shall not be moved
answered by hoses dogs
drowned in the ink of
institutions that dug
holes for our dreams
we were waves rising
marching chanting
we taught the world
to sing freedom
granny told us about cotton
we remembered to remember
we became doctors lawyers
judges store owners
soldiers accountants
teachers & preachers embracing
the gospel of boot straps
legislated rights
sitting spooks at doors
praying our time
in the bosom of
the past wrapped round
us as we stood on it
reaching together
in small backyards
at birthday parties
reunions & repast after
funerals of old people
who know the people
in the pictures
& the neighbors who knew
them & you since you were little
bringing food telling stories
that keep the connection
alive because we knew
we were all walking the same
way on the road
building home with our hearts and hands
even after urban renewals
after imminent domain
after the factory, mill, garage closed
after the prison opened
after heroin swallowed 110th st
before freeway rick
before Vietnam
before the post office took granny’s
house stuck her in the projects
she never owned another house
died sleeping on Aunt Glo’s couch
where the cousins all grew up
where childhood memories lived
until the bank refinanced Aunt Glo’s house
the same house the bank
would not give her grandfather
the money to build
they refinanced it during the
boom then lowered that boom
when Aunt Glo could not float the
balloon they hung in the
small print
before cousin Fat Boy
thought he was an urban cowboy
& they caught him with
scales in his Cadillac
bright red with white wall tires
granny would not ride in it
but we saw Fat Boy &
some followed him to
prison then took that ride
to the graveyard with him
we moved
like sharecroppers
like dream chasers
like those denied a resting place
with hope and persistent faith
in the America we learned in
rooms filled with other brown children
we moved for jobs
we moved to find a place
we moved to get away
we moved
to the projects no yards
no swings no park
daddy gone mama got to work
be worked work the system
get into the system of
manlessness boys become
men in houses with sad
women who must go on
who lay with men who won’t
raise other men’s children
or their own
are still children them self
numbered caged missing
from dinner tables
dinner tables missing
micro wave dinners
on laps in front of screens
chasing other realities
children lost to street corner
fantasies even weeds will
grow wild things bloom
whether or not they are cared for
sisters see mothers
settling suffering struggling
lost in following suit
lost in rebellion
who will save the babies
born to babies
girls looking for love
smothered by responsibility
twerked worked confused
by media men and the tide
washing away what it means
to be a woman redefined
by a public sphere that
chains them with labels
after chaining them in reality
we are in transition in to
a visibility we craft but
have not found the time
or ink to write the rules
or overstand the story
of broken families
broken connections
broken like covenants
family overwritten by
myth ethnographers & Fox news
what happened to black families
the ways we saw ourselves
when we were whole
or more whole
or strong in the face of the
holes dug by ink institutions
& hate before we fell into
the holes shattering
the whole of
the mother father child
thing we relearned after
the spoons in the bottom of
the boat thing
before the cotton fields
after the sharecropping
after world wars
war on drugs
war on terrorism
war on black men
war on black women
war on black children
before the war
on us
we remembered cotton
we were different
before the war
on families
we were different
together
warm hands
deep voices
roses in the spring
melon in the summer
school clothes
car vacations
aunts uncles
grandpas’ & grannies
presents on Christmas morning
Easter dinner
church on new years eve
we were holding vigil
keeping the watch granny said
we remembered cotton
sunrise to sunset
hard working
in factories, construction,
in kitchens, garages
in slaughter yards
rail cars, ship yards
steel mills
work for willing hands
our hands were willing
school days learning
America from America
pledging allegiances
seeking assimilation
like a warm coat in
a winter that won’t end
cold water dreams &
hot water corn bread days
fathers in houses
holding us accountable
showing us what men
look like we saw we knew
we followed in footsteps
hoping to climb higher
we remembered cotton
we were determined
we pushed & got shoved back
heads high we sat down
we shall not be moved
answered by hoses dogs
drowned in the ink of
institutions that dug
holes for our dreams
we were waves rising
marching chanting
we taught the world
to sing freedom
granny told us about cotton
we remembered to remember
we became doctors lawyers
judges store owners
soldiers accountants
teachers & preachers embracing
the gospel of boot straps
legislated rights
sitting spooks at doors
praying our time
in the bosom of
the past wrapped round
us as we stood on it
reaching together
in small backyards
at birthday parties
reunions & repast after
funerals of old people
who know the people
in the pictures
& the neighbors who knew
them & you since you were little
bringing food telling stories
that keep the connection
alive because we knew
we were all walking the same
way on the road
building home with our hearts and hands
even after urban renewals
after imminent domain
after the factory, mill, garage closed
after the prison opened
after heroin swallowed 110th st
before freeway rick
before Vietnam
before the post office took granny’s
house stuck her in the projects
she never owned another house
died sleeping on Aunt Glo’s couch
where the cousins all grew up
where childhood memories lived
until the bank refinanced Aunt Glo’s house
the same house the bank
would not give her grandfather
the money to build
they refinanced it during the
boom then lowered that boom
when Aunt Glo could not float the
balloon they hung in the
small print
before cousin Fat Boy
thought he was an urban cowboy
& they caught him with
scales in his Cadillac
bright red with white wall tires
granny would not ride in it
but we saw Fat Boy &
some followed him to
prison then took that ride
to the graveyard with him
we moved
like sharecroppers
like dream chasers
like those denied a resting place
with hope and persistent faith
in the America we learned in
rooms filled with other brown children
we moved for jobs
we moved to find a place
we moved to get away
we moved
to the projects no yards
no swings no park
daddy gone mama got to work
be worked work the system
get into the system of
manlessness boys become
men in houses with sad
women who must go on
who lay with men who won’t
raise other men’s children
or their own
are still children them self
numbered caged missing
from dinner tables
dinner tables missing
micro wave dinners
on laps in front of screens
chasing other realities
children lost to street corner
fantasies even weeds will
grow wild things bloom
whether or not they are cared for
sisters see mothers
settling suffering struggling
lost in following suit
lost in rebellion
who will save the babies
born to babies
girls looking for love
smothered by responsibility
twerked worked confused
by media men and the tide
washing away what it means
to be a woman redefined
by a public sphere that
chains them with labels
after chaining them in reality
we are in transition in to
a visibility we craft but
have not found the time
or ink to write the rules
or overstand the story
of broken families
broken connections
broken like covenants
family overwritten by
myth ethnographers & Fox news
what happened to black families
the ways we saw ourselves
when we were whole
or more whole
or strong in the face of the
holes dug by ink institutions
& hate before we fell into
the holes shattering
the whole of
the mother father child
thing we relearned after
the spoons in the bottom of
the boat thing
before the cotton fields
after the sharecropping
after world wars
war on drugs
war on terrorism
war on black men
war on black women
war on black children
before the war
on us
we remembered cotton
we were different
