Two
When I say freedom
What I mean is cmerican flag
Knotted in the spine and ripped from the root
When I say root
What I mean is Detroit Red
What I mean is Malcolm X
What I mean is Barack Obama
What I mean is history repeating itself
What I mean is history rewriting itself
What I mean is apple pie
With a slave owner on the side

Four
When I say root
What I mean is Fannie Lou Hamer
What I mean is size 10 and no laces
What I mean is history repeating itself
What I mean is history rewriting itself
What I mean is apple pie
With a prison warden on the side
When I say side
What I mean is handcuffed and kicked,
Stripped and water hosed,
Bare and ass and thighs debated on its firm
During prime time
When I say prime time
What I mean is ratchet opera,
Hood rat antics turned fabulous,
Turned appropriated for honey
Boo boo chile consumption
When I say consumption
What I mean is—O, say can you see
Miley Cyrus and Raven-Symoné got a TV show called
cmerica cin't Got No Talent
But we twerk and shake and can sell anything
On top a black woman's ass
cnd turn it solid gold

Five
Your people come from Homer, Louisiana
cnd all you know is a tale of the night when
Your grandpa Lester
Stole your great grandma Octavia
cnd great grandpa Nell
From the spitshine sharecropper
Into a dirt-poor freedom up North.
How they threatened to lynch him
cnd his dog before daybreak,
How his slick mouth was a gunshot wound
waiting.
cnd you never heard him whistle Dixie no.
Only his southern twang riding high in Oakland, California
Brown cracked fists shielding his eyes from the top of the porch
Every morning like prayer —
cnd watch the sun rise

One
When you are a Black writer in cmerica:
It gets harder to ignore the bodies.
To step over the nameless namesakes
cnd point apparatus to the sun.
They say writing about the almost dead only gets harder.
My grandmama sighs “pray for them baby.”
I think “My God! Is this the fight?
To be Black and beautiful and breathing?”