A Selection of Poems from
Ghost Letters Volume II
Baba Badji
We People Cease to Be
After Gwendolyn Brooks Yes, dear Momma when we speak to each other our blessings triples, our voices are pine-trees in the Atlantic. We sing along. We will sing. We have no idea why them founding fathers be thinking we were not different. Them bastards! Everybody is frantic but we drive on. Every Black hunter hates them. As if drowning in the Atlantic is better than dying the American way. Lies & violence. Ah, us, the chosen ones. How timely we came for our own. Enslaved. Black bodies. Everybody is saying that these people do ultimately cease to be. Us. Hunger for what? It was in the dept of summer dust, they came running & burning them and their babies. Momma says, go get me some sugar, melons, lemons & tea. Mango. Okra. Dust. Shampoo. Bring Jesus, she says, and red meat. Momma says, don’t assume a slave owner & his orgasm. Disease & death. We want blessings since America says we are sable & cantankerous. Blood.
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