Featured Poem 12/17/05


Sun Dress


She wore an itsy bitsy
teeny weenie
Black floral satin sun dress
that meshed
so very well with her black
skin
and cleft chin
which ultimately thinned
out the rest of her face and soft pleasant grin

when she giggled, it would disrupt
disharmony's detoxification of itself
until there was nothing left
to detoxify but the wind
and when the wind got jealous of her it
blew the ends of her Black dress toward the heavens
and the wind would reveal firm thighs
firm thighs that flowed like beautiful first menstrual cycles
running psychedelic circles around
the prying hands of mama's
boyfriend
that penetrated and burned the skin of her soul
like hydrochloric acid

but her soul is placid
after all that prying, and all that crying and
all that lying
its placid because she used time as life's dead metaphor
to keep her soul from dying

The cyan neon lights flashed
and she walked over puddles of wet sun
and stepped right into
Friday night where within sight of her friends
she packaged her guilt
of abortions and abusive boyfriends
in a Christmas wrapping
and gave it to the nearest bartender she could find
and that’s how she found happiness
her Black satin sun dress.

 

David Hart

from his 2005 chapbook Melanin
Order it fom him: dahiii@hotmail.com, or buy it at Avol's


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