Black skin
White coat
No matter the lifetime, cotton hair
is parted and shaved. The crowning
achievement of womanhood is the
attention of the operating table,
legs splayed, an offering to
nitrile glove and silver scope.
History dilating, she cries
alongside her burgeoning womb,
skin no thicker than her oppressors.
She is her body and hundreds
of other bodies, slick in water,
in light — a child, and a clot
to compress with black tulle,
the uplifted gaze of the world.
Had ears opened, maybe her mothers
would have guided her with a strength
that I am reminded warrants
jealousy, irreducible to Latin.
But an eleven of ten
remains a four.
Image courtesy of iStock.com/vaitekune
Footnotes
This article has been peer reviewed.