after Danez Smith
America, even when you sing
bombs bursting / in air
I know there is a good, Milky Way
God, reversed / & paralleled. A sweet
Orion eye ringed to our ears. An arrow towards,
just for Black girls who never got to stay
with the same name. We always look / good
in an ivory-skinned summer, in a river-washed
gown. Death is the darkest / hour for those who live,
thinking they don’t belong here as a criminal,
as a savior, as a skull sibling or an Earth return,
as a daughter & a dove. I’m never / alone
even when I’m in the mouth of sharks, cus
I’m kin / to serpents. We retrieve our supper
to shed new shields. Almighty worlds, islands
of misfit / men & menaces. You can have some
place & never find my Heaven. I am home
in the arms of the armed. I am / home in thee,
mouthes of mothers. I am home / and no one
is afraid to end. You will always be my subject,
Black Heaven, Black people: never without / wings.
