Poetry

They line the road, the valley side,
Back lit and dark as Satan’s horn.
Their roots descend through rock and bone
To Purgatory. Their points appear
To pierce an isolated cloud.

I hear popping
in my right ear again.
It happens every time I chew
and it annoys me so
to the point where
I have a hard time
breaking things down
enough to swallow.

To be a black girl is to be ancient
A walking cemetery
A womb to only carry lynched sons and kidnapped daughters
Have feet made of fossils
Learning the oil spill of her birth
A hip strong enough for her kin
An underground railroad kind of back