Mr. Africa Poetry Lounge!

Negative


Wake to find everything black
what was white, all the vice
versa-white maids on TV, black


sitcoms that star white dwarfs
cute as pearl buttons. Black Presidents,
Black Houses. White horse


candidates. All bleach burns
clothes black. Drive roads
white as you are, white songs


on the radio stolen by black bands
like secret pancake recipes, white back-up
singers, ball-players & boxers all


white as tar. Feathers on chickens
dark as everything, boiling in the pot
that called the kettle honky. Even


whites of the eye turn dark, pupils
clear & changing as a cat's.
Is this what we've wanted


& waited for? to see snow
covering everything black
as Christmas, dark pages written


white upon? All our eclipses bright,
dark stars shooting across pale
sky, glowing like ash in fire, shower


every skin. Only money keeps
green, still grows & burns like grass
under dark daylight.

Written by Kevin Young

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Mr. Africa Poetry Lounge