by Evan Cutts
Here’s a joke:
A white girl walks into a sauna
Full of steaming black bodies…
Shouts: What’s good niggas?
There is no punchline
But the steam wavers with laughter all the same.
I imagine it’s uncomfortable— their shame
Hanged in their throats.
I pray that they haven’t forgotten themselves
On this side
Of the water
or the People
Who didn’t make it this far.
I pray I pray & in silence
I pray because I know
Tongues make excellent nooses.
I won’t blame them.
Shame is a diligent bloodhound.
It found me twice
In my poplar bed frame
Feigning sleep,
Pretending silence
Isn’t an erasure
Of my skin.
I rose to find my heart afire,
The matchbook
Lit on my too-dry tongue, &
The only sound that I couldn’t escape
Was the dog
Barking—A shame:
Our words don’t stay
In heart, in mind.
They are smoke escaping
Ten thousand thousand throats;
A murder of blackbirds breaking
Ranks before a cloud-white sky
Ain’t that an omen?
Ain’t that a shame?
Behind the smoking veil, you behold neither
Our mouths on fire & singing!
Nor the air that surrounds—
How it fissures with heat when
We gather in the streets &
The classrooms, Grandma’s house &
The function, church &
Darryl’s Corner Bar.
How Our bodies shift beside
Memories of history, of pain,
Of Black lives & pride:
Black hands conducting
A chorus of soul—applause;
A moment’s prayer repeated
As if to say:
Thank God, We made it…
Across the Atlantic when
They threw Us to the sharks.
We made it.
Out the cotton fields when
They chopped off Our feet.
We made it.
To the mic when they’d rather
We choke on Our blood.
We made it.
This voice, We made it.
Set it ablaze on the mic &
It burned out too soon.
I watched it
As the smoke blew out
The window.