Miatta Kawinzi

11/30/1999

they call it history, what you wrote that day,
but yours was not a history of dry words imprinted
on dry paper, was instead the prohibited scrawl in red
paint on bank windows, the flicker of red cloaking a
face, spelling out the ease with which we can become
faceless. & yours were determined feet
traversing concrete & overstepping the flora bursting through,
illuminating the resistance you embodied with your bodies
braced against the line of armored figures ingesting orders &
releasing toxins last seen in saigon, & they steadily snaked
through damp air towards you, you who were unflinching,
you who were attached to the arms of those next to you, you
who chanted ”no fear” as your poised peace signs were
responded to with tear gas, as handcuffs came as a response
to your folksinging. each of your bodies was a building on
that day, each building a finger to curl into a fist, & because you
composed the city, it was you who could shut it down.

When The Rain Falls It Does Not Fall On One Woman’s House

It is not just
The White Man, the obvious hate,
the particles stretching bold & hurtful -
but also the burdens we transfer to each
other, brown skin against brown skin,
the curve of pain pulled out of one place
and pushed into another, so close it has
found no new home.

One woman screeching, hair wild &
fingers sharp, her tone a condemnation
of her own kind. Another, pushing the
needle into me from her own ache,
not knowing the hurt she will inflict
reflects her own, not knowing the
trigger cocked reverberates against
her temple also -
sharp and sudden, an unrefined
struggle, forcing me down to lift
herself, seeking a pedestal that is not higher.

It is the strict apathy, the muted song, the
lie of life lived denying others, the veil of
anger directed at your own reflection, the
clasp of blindness leading to a path away
from roots, toward a tangle of distractions.
When you fail to look at me you deny
yourself your own face also -
You leap weighted into a well of distancing,
you crawl unknowing from yourself
who is coiled and afraid,
who is uncertain and unsure,
who would rather walk away than
find pride in your origins.

Doors slammed shut speak a coded language
flecked with the rage of feelings unexamined.
For if you were to see their meaning, burrow
beneath their outer rings, pull skin and bone
until the core was visible -
You would see,
at its heart,
yourself,
others reflected in you,
potential allies,

potential selves.

Displacement

Once, I sat with knees pulled tight,
hoping the hold would quiet
the storm of heartbeat being raged in me.
Crouched sullenly in clumsy hiding,
he yelled at her with rage I could not touch.

Do we go back, then
to the conquering of Kenyan soil,
the belittling of a people?
Or to the stories those ivory-faced men sold,
about the birth from man of woman?

But we are in America, they tell me.
In America, it is different.
I ask you,
who Africa’ed my America
was it in the sway of slave
woman hips, the silence
spelled out loud as Southern night?

Was it in the mute resilience of
generation after generation of
Black-bodied women struck and
stung by men swollen by rage?
Who America’ed my Africa, I ask you:

brown bodies seeking foreign logos,
plastic-wrapped prizes, while
dreaded white boys tap out their rhythms
in drumbeats an ocean away?

Colonization has confused humanity,
changed culture from inheritance to trend.

You cannot buy your history, I
tell you. You slave-owner’s son adorned in
cowrie shells, the purchases you pursue
do not heal holes whipped by the past.

But how do we take this history
and mold it fiercely,
string battered patterns into shapes
less harsh?

This be our duty,
should we embrace it.
This be our duty,
bold & huge.

Copyright © 2008 Miatta Kawinzi