At home we pray every morning, we
get down on our knees in a circle,
holding hands, holding Love,
and we sing hallelujah.
Then we go into the world.
Daddy speeds, to break bread with his Girl Friend.
Mommy’s a Boss. And a lesbian.
(She too has a nice Girl Friend.)
my brothers and sisters and I come to school.
We bring knives pistols bottles, little boxes, and cans.
We talk to the man who’s cool at the playground gate.
Nobody Sees us, nobody stops our sin.
Our teachers feed us geography.
We spit it out in a hurry.
My way is from woe to wonder.
A Black boy near Johannesburg, hot in the Hot Time.
Those people do not like Black among the colors.
They do not like our calling our country ours.
They say our country is not ours.
Those people. Visiting the world as I visit the world.
Those people. Their bleach is puckered and cruel.
It is work to speak of my Father.
My Father. His body whole till they stopped it.
Suddenly. With a short shot.
Before, before that , physically tall among us, he died every day.
Every moment. Mt Father…
