African Voices Summer 2017 AV Summer 2017 Digital Issue | Page 29

this poem won’t even mention sex
so please dismiss any reference to strangers encroaching in the dancehall
cause you’re moving and smiling and alone and so tall
and so strange so exotic and something to kiss
to caress to feel to grind and play
for a night or a song then push you away.
This poem will say nothing
of any fetishes or obsessions or psychic scars
left by microaggressions you may still carry
like that time you went to visit
your fair-hair friend in a straight comb town
and barely preteens you two found
some random yard sale and while thumbing through books
and records and whatever was there
some white-shadow woman noticed your nappy
black hair and leaned in behind you
close to your ear whispering
“Need a basketball?”
This poem won’t mention that at all.
no
this poem wants to convey silence
or violence
silence being the most violent word
this poem knows.
this poem will now go.
© 2017 Quincy Scott Jones
african Voices
29