poem for my niggas
By McKenzie Chinn
i wanna see you smiling more my nigga
where nigga equals prophet
heralded by seraphim and trumpet
and i don’t mean smile
how random men will tell me to smile
i don’t mean smile
the grotesque masks we’ve worn
for police and paparazzi, for mortgage lenders
i mean smile
like the first time you ever did
when your mama sang you that song
older than maybe earth itself
held you brown skin to brown skin
and you knew through her hum
who you were
don’t you know i know you my nigga
i see you in the brown
of the lines on my own palm
you future and fortune my nigga
good like soil, right less like rain
and more like thunder
i shudder to think of the you in me
the you in all this empire, assembled
brick by brick on your back for free
don’t you know i know you
sense you in a room before i see you
you like the sea, you ocean
you crash, tumult, riptide, and rightly salt
bear hurricanes ashore
to wreck what you were made to build
don’t you know i see you my nigga
the uniforms you don and eyes you lower
the only crime you’ve committed is to thrive
in these eyes you are no fetish
no exception and need no explanation
your hood-ass name a song on my tongue
brown iris and black pupil
the place where the sky and water meet, black pupil
black hole that’d crush us all but for your grace
how i hear you my nigga
like i hear a ways away a train to Jordan
how i see you like i see
the house i mean when i say
i’m going home
you home, my nigga
where nigga equals titan
troubled water, and if you listen:
the drum that’s calling