BHM!

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION WITH DARK WHISPERS 

FOR THE ECHOLOCATION OF A FIGURE NOIR

(after ashes buried)

Black as a mythical village echoed 

by talking drums from Ibadan,

or the darkness where sweet potatoes root 

as some still dream of growing yams?

The musk of the hand carved mask,

or a funky beloved feeling bituminous?

Could you spot it perhaps on the spectrum?

Do y’all hum or alhamdulillah?

O Lorde—do we decide to star it or tar it

as others have sought to find asphalt

in our absence of photons or perhaps

recite [carbon & oxygen & aluminum]

tho not as a ploy of blaxploitation

where most of the kinks get afro-picked out

and what is left only looks like a globe.

Ore a melanite halo if some hot Mama needs 

to braid or lay her baby hair for miles ahead

with [mendelevium & nickel & tellurium].

What elemental truth isn’t melasomorphic? 

And yet, don’t we still ache to cross it 

as if fingers or streets or an ocean

—to seek a return to the orishas even

as we wonder if they over here?

So what. Don’t put five fingers 

over your ears to count the pentecost.

Instead, put a question to the talking drum—

does your grammar have a rosary or recipe 

written in cornrows on her head, where

our midnight blues could maybe indigo?