How do you speak to me?
With what occult science and hidden roses
do you address the crystals in my heart?
Your empty arms that would embrace the world
embrace me too.
My visible whiteness, my easy privilege,
your gay black manhood.
When I had two much-loved white babies,
there was no noise that hissed
‘white men make bad fathers’.
I never had to ask a lover
‘does your mother know you’re fucking a white man?’
I too have been followed by store detectives across shopping zones
but never for my provocative skin tones.
Let’s share our family albums.
You; barbeques and blackened chicken,
shining ribs, and beer, and pop.
Me; grinning at graduations, gowns on,
and hats doffed to the universe.
You; the gay un-childed uncle,
Me; arms full of future generations
Yet how do you speak to me now?
In this gallery of modern art
you shout ‘mudha fucka’ in this Rothko chapel
where we come to silently worship.
You tell me that loneliness is a shared enterprise,
it kills us when we fall apart,
that partial justice is justice for none
and with every silence, we are undone.
How do you speak to me?
You promised every honey chil’
that your angels would be tall, black, drag queens.
Now they haunt this gallery
for all with eyes to see.