Poems

poem where I be & you just might

By Danez Smith

               I am sitting next to you & you are not there
you're a frameless heat, mass of ruptured air.

               to be clear, you are the spit & liver it takes
to be human & I want it & I think you want me

               to have it all, but I know
what it's like to be one of the few blacks

               for miles. I know what our people think
about me, or maybe us. I know
 
               God's flaming eye, I stare into it always
dying to blink, irises cracking like commandment stones.

               I get it.
               I get it.

               &it might be how you say
my name like a testimony


               or how I graze your hand
&yours doesn't move, but my body

               made up a rumor about your body
&wants to prove it true. forgive him.




Reprinted with the permission of the author. All rights reserved.