My black
Maurya Kerr
Maurya Kerr
If We Bask, by Yesica Mirambeaux, digital collage, 2022
tired of what she is & what she ain’t. My black
be one drop, two drop, three drop, four, sneaking
in the side door cuz fuck the brown paper
bag test & my black’ll straight up bombast
your western canon class. She got a mean
topknot game & tits to play so let us all
PRAISE BE to her cocoa areolae! — but alas
she a flat-ass wit no jive nor nae nae.
Mister My Mister, I black BLACK art on the daily,
sing the sads to a cyan sky at night, then
black myself to sleep on four hundred
count impure white cotton sheet.
My black does not find that story funny &
still HELLA NO you cannot touch her fro
& to & to & fro the west by whipped wrest.
In the brine o’ white she a fish outta water,
but drop her black ass into the Black Sea &
she’ll drown, can’t even wade in the white-
caps cuz you know no colored girl can swim.
Damnit to hell all ash-n-thirsty skin, so c’mon
lover, gimme some shea shea butter to put
in her kinky hair kinking high n’ dry & everywhere.
Sister My Sister, she a wannabe black sorority, so I sent
her skinny ass to college but she got as mad as a black
outta hell, so I sent her to grad school & now
she impatient like a rocket headed to coordinates
Whitey On The Moon. Why just yesterday
she blacked the fuck out of a lady who insisted that
‘She And The Other Whites Just Need A Little
Encouragement.’ DAMN! You tellin’ me there ain’t
even one albumen woman with any degree
of acumen?! Poor damsel-of-the-thresh crying
like a holy ghosted baby in her ivory highchair & don’t
nobody even dare Tuesday blackout square near me, here,
in the blackground, where the colored girls go to
step
touch
step
touch
shimmy shimmy
coco pop
shimmy shimmy
pop a cock &
I loves me a java-colored Jesus who saves & saves.
But my black still diabetes & strokes, suicides &
blinds, nightmares & retches then wakes to play
the possum playing dead cuz black always prey.
See her over there swayin’ black & forth, a regular
at the funereal & she dirge black so whitey
G E T T H E F U C K B A C K.
— death & death & death & death &—
So please forgive us, black & I, for skippin’
our rise-n-shine prayers today. She & me
made some short work of some crackers
in our white sheets last night &
now we tired.
be one drop, two drop, three drop, four, sneaking
in the side door cuz fuck the brown paper
bag test & my black’ll straight up bombast
your western canon class. She got a mean
topknot game & tits to play so let us all
PRAISE BE to her cocoa areolae! — but alas
she a flat-ass wit no jive nor nae nae.
Mister My Mister, I black BLACK art on the daily,
sing the sads to a cyan sky at night, then
black myself to sleep on four hundred
count impure white cotton sheet.
My black does not find that story funny &
still HELLA NO you cannot touch her fro
& to & to & fro the west by whipped wrest.
In the brine o’ white she a fish outta water,
but drop her black ass into the Black Sea &
she’ll drown, can’t even wade in the white-
caps cuz you know no colored girl can swim.
Damnit to hell all ash-n-thirsty skin, so c’mon
lover, gimme some shea shea butter to put
in her kinky hair kinking high n’ dry & everywhere.
Sister My Sister, she a wannabe black sorority, so I sent
her skinny ass to college but she got as mad as a black
outta hell, so I sent her to grad school & now
she impatient like a rocket headed to coordinates
Whitey On The Moon. Why just yesterday
she blacked the fuck out of a lady who insisted that
‘She And The Other Whites Just Need A Little
Encouragement.’ DAMN! You tellin’ me there ain’t
even one albumen woman with any degree
of acumen?! Poor damsel-of-the-thresh crying
like a holy ghosted baby in her ivory highchair & don’t
nobody even dare Tuesday blackout square near me, here,
in the blackground, where the colored girls go to
step
touch
step
touch
shimmy shimmy
coco pop
shimmy shimmy
pop a cock &
I loves me a java-colored Jesus who saves & saves.
But my black still diabetes & strokes, suicides &
blinds, nightmares & retches then wakes to play
the possum playing dead cuz black always prey.
See her over there swayin’ black & forth, a regular
at the funereal & she dirge black so whitey
G E T T H E F U C K B A C K.
— death & death & death & death &—
So please forgive us, black & I, for skippin’
our rise-n-shine prayers today. She & me
made some short work of some crackers
in our white sheets last night &
now we tired.
About the Author
Maurya Kerr is a Bay-area based artist whose poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and appears in multiple journals. Much of her artistic work, across disciplines, is focused on racialized people reclaiming their birthright to both wonderment and the quotidian. Maurya was a 2021/22 UC Berkeley ARC (Arts Research Center) Poetry & the Senses Fellow, and her work was chosen by Jericho Brown as a runner-up in Southern Humanities Review’s 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize.
About the Work
""My black" is part of a larger group of poems about my experiences in the world as a mixed-race, light-skinned black woman, set to be published as a chapbook entitled MUTTOLOGY in March 2023 by Harbor Editions."
About the Author's Process
"I am so fortunate to be part of a writing group/class that has been, and remains, instrumental to the development of my craft — I don't think I would be a published poet without their support and direct, concise feedback."
Maurya Kerr is a Bay-area based artist whose poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and appears in multiple journals. Much of her artistic work, across disciplines, is focused on racialized people reclaiming their birthright to both wonderment and the quotidian. Maurya was a 2021/22 UC Berkeley ARC (Arts Research Center) Poetry & the Senses Fellow, and her work was chosen by Jericho Brown as a runner-up in Southern Humanities Review’s 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize.
About the Work
""My black" is part of a larger group of poems about my experiences in the world as a mixed-race, light-skinned black woman, set to be published as a chapbook entitled MUTTOLOGY in March 2023 by Harbor Editions."
About the Author's Process
"I am so fortunate to be part of a writing group/class that has been, and remains, instrumental to the development of my craft — I don't think I would be a published poet without their support and direct, concise feedback."
