I Wept Rivers

  By Jerhretta Dafina Suite

I wept after reading Malcolm's

Life and Death

I wept long and hard

for generations past and future

I WEPT RIVERS

I wept for love and hate and

Indifference

I wept for noses sliced in Egypt

and South Africa

and North America

I wept for Michael Jackson

I wept for perms

processes and pieces

for blond blacks

and Jheri-curls

I even wept for fad-locks

I wept for corns stuffed in too small shoes

I wept for blue contact-eyed ebony sisters

And attempted melanin mutilation

(As though skin lighteners will actually make them

Brighter)

I wept for the perennial Indian

we always claim

gave us our Afrikan cheekbones

I wept for dawn-colored wanna-be

and dusk-colored hate-to-be

and expressions like "yellow gone to waste"

I wept for the lady

who prayed her

grandchild would not "come out dark"

I wept for the Black man married to a white girl

who calls pure race children "regular"

(Are his children irregular?)

And the Black woman

who married a white boy

PRAYING

her child's hair would not be nappy

I wept for the brother who quit me because I kept my 'fro

I wept for Arikan brothers boasting

European designers

And Black greeks --

I wept for Brown-bag tests

And for Blue-veins

and their blues

I wept for Billie

Who never had a holiday

And for brothers who will knock-a-sister-down

gettin' to a white girl

And sisters who have decided

Only a white boy

Can give them

what they have been taught to want

I wept for Afrikans born in Jamaica

who hate Afrikans born in America

who hate Afrikans born in Afrika

who hate . . .

I wept for US 

who turn vices into virtues

I wept

I wept for

I wept for the

I wept for the last

I wept for the last time.

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