A new number for every time I don’t know what it means to be "black"
A new number for every time I could’ve been anything else
 
1.
Gelatin Silver.  (i am)
carving a swan’s contour out of silence
I jumped into the muted beak
and blur of William Klein
throat-locks unlock
and I sing
inside the softness
of chrysalis kingdoms
 
 
73.
Tissue red.  (i am)
a type of depression that patience would kill for
 
 
6.
Soft Velvet yellow. (i am)
where I sit by the rolled down window
of summer and watch pedestrian life
Spider by like streamers
twinkling in the handlebared air
 
 
6 1/2.
Less Soft Velvet Yellow.  (i am)
when winter comes back, again
for her throne of shivers and pejorative shawls
distant warmth of August
like the reflection of a smile
from the other side of a murky cesura
 
 
29.
Obvious Violet.   (i am)
poetry crumbs
for my tired peoples
who know the barnyard rink of a dark’s cold
who wear sung loops
above the hurtled-ash of their cheek bones
whose eyes— castled with sleep
are cornered with the adhesive muck of dream knots
whose fingers are the AM excavators
digging out sleep coal from eye-hole mines
 
 
63.
Understated Pre-Brown.   (i am)
enflamed kiss of vellum hide
widened by skin blooms
I have pulled every last tooth and pin
every splinter of celebration lost
I wrap them all in fossil gauze
to prevent an unraveling of my names
 
 
88.
Stable Green.   (i am)
the other day
a fluorescent string
of subway lights
swung across your eyes
leaving the impression
of machete stained glitter wounds
wash
crush pours and sliver mush
dripped into the way
I’ve learned to say
te quiero mi moreno
 
 
11.
Time adjusted grey.   (i am)
the clipped and elderly cornrows
resting on the floor
of the black owned barber shop
grey crawls of woven secrets
former maps
knots of eye wince
and quilts of hand cups
reminding me there’s nothing rotten
for the soul hunters to haunt for
 
 
221.
Itchy Beige.  (i am)
Where birds sing
debris songs
Into new nets
 
 
13.
Clear.   (i am)
Who humble is
and wind
no complaints
despite having been
the janitor for all these years
cleaning up and rearranging
the mess of dusk
yes. in the same way
that evening sky has learned
to clean its mouth of old clouds
I too have learned to rinse
and spit
out the distractions from my days
 
 
13, 13.
Clear, Clear.   (i am)
humble doubled
the way trouble grows
the color of oppression wrap
like the sprained Achilles of our culture
injured by the speed of all unnamable things
clear, clear is the color of real danger
the closeness of unwanted absence
hiding in the sun-sheath of day break
clear, clear is broken
and the way hatred goes
clear, clear is the open apology
to the bigot and blindfold