photo by Alex Lear
You Won't See This On Television
(to nia/to black women)
i have a boxcar of feelings for you, raw as afterbirth, unsubtle
as the sheriff delivering a summons or rev. jamison's sermon
railing against false gods, except there is nothing illegal nor mystical
about my commitment to publicly wash myself, no dirty linen,
no putting on airs, only a purity, sharp as the in rush of your breath
after my lick suck on the thick erect of your nipple thrust
or the distinctive pride of my willingness to be poor whenever
being rich signifies selling my principles or our people
though many of us may sometimes barter our bodies
for a mere moment's pleasure or the morseled promise
of a material trifle, still, regardless of our life's relative lightness
or the near unbearable burden of historic auction, the intimacy
of blackness continues not as a thing, but rather is eternally evidenced
as an act of freedom, the realization of love's arc of giving
—kalamu ya salaam