Kwame Dawes
BLACK FUNK
The rigid of my jaw bone
is power forged in the oven
of every blow I have felt;
my water walk is something like
compensation for a limp.
Don't begrudge me my sashay
walk, it's all I got sometimes.
'Cause I know the way you stare,
pale blue eyes like a machete edge
catching the colour of new sky,
the way you barely whisper
your orders, spit out the food,
complain about my shuffling gait,
snorting out my funky smell,
find fault in each task I do,
never right, never good enough;
curse my children like dogs,
cause I know you just hurting
drooling your bitterness
when my back is turned,
when the shape of my black ass
swings that way you hate
sashaying through this room of daggers.
I know you're wondering what I've got
down there, in my belly, in my thighs,
make him leave your side,
crawl out of his pale sick skin
and howl like a beast at night,
whimper like a motherless babe
suckling on me, suckling on me.
You can't hide the shame you feel
to know I sometimes turn him back,
I know you know it, from the way,
he comes on you hard and hurried,
searching for a hole to weep his soul in--
yes, I turn him back when I want,
and he still comes back for more.
I've got my pride sometimes.
I know the way you try to read me
try to be me, can't be me,
never be me, never feel the black
of me, never know the blues in me,
'cause you never want to see you
in me even though we bleed together,
finding each other's tidal rhythms,
and bloat together like sisters,
hoarding the waters of the moon together.
So I sashay through your life,
averting the blades with my leather skin.
I abuse you, and when he bawls,
that is my pride at work,
all I've got sometimes.
I'll cook your meals
until he keels over,
and you just have to take it
'cause I took it with no fuss
when he forced his nothing self on me,
while my babies sucked their thumbs
within the sound of my whimpering;
I paid, baby;
I'm just reaping what y'all done sowed.