MESSIAH, THE POEM

in black literature

by Messiah Cristine

They talk of seeds and retribution 

and ways of seeing that go beneath the underbelly of the tenderized green of the fruits and figs 

and peaches in your grandmama’s back yard 

of invisible men 

wishful blue eyed daughters 

Ambient watercolor truths and 

women sleeping with best friends husbands 

The flat foots on the long southern road 

the hot weighty flesh of sun 

Peeling the black back 

The bone gone white then 

Blue purple coal midnight 

black lit 

the floating black 

hues 

And tonality 

hymns stretching 

for the earth’s malt 

Licking tongues 

With black salt 

What will make 

the blood 

Caramelize 

in the sun 

Is the question tho 

Which nigga read fanon 

And who cut the chord from the white gaze first 

Which negro will be given the congested 

Sugar cane 

Who will be placed out first underneath the 

Black History Month Reading List 

The black word tenderized 

in the pricention review 

Passing for white 

The word now laid in a dorm 

Between 

Steve and rachel 

The black word rectified

Blessed it be upon the Sweaty tear 

the flat barefoot 

describing the 

only orb 

in the heavens 

just to be circled between 

four choices.