after Langston Hughes

My shrinkage is a season of drought,
every coil a mirrored ripple of my ancients'.
And they say they couldn’t see
the Nile in me.
But what am I if not black
magic? What is black magic
if not the light at the end
of the longest stretch of miracle?

I built myself
a historic blood, built myself
in and out of my parents' legacy.

And ain't that the blackest thing?
To hold your mama
’s hand/papa's jaw/gramma's switch
firm in one hand,
and, in the other,
transmute it into currency
for the smiling crowd.
Hope the pedestaled white man
gives you a nod's worth of kudos
to share amongst your stranger peers --
without so much as a “thank you.”
And ain't that the other blackest thing ?
To prove your blackness
isn't an inherently deadly thing
even if it is
the deadest thing in the room?
Especially?

And all I've ever done is try to prove that I can swim.

But, they all laugh
at me to my face, behind my fro
(never in front of my wand, though. Funny).

So, I asked to drown,
just to show them that I couldn't.
But, they magicked me to sleep
in the middle of the second act,
and let me sink peacefully
to the bottom of a lake.

And this is how I betray my rivers --
becoming a pawn in another white man’s
treasured game of chest
in waters that don’t bleed
out into my blood.
I suppose it's okay, though,
to be the most serious joke in the room
and still be the easiest one to make.
I was never meant to be Black, was I?
Even if I am.
Especially.
​