is allowed to love herself.
She wants to tell Nikky Finney
about her beautiful black girl arms
how they shimmer and shimmy in space—
making muscle songs of her tendons
and the dark matter beef.
Mixed Bitch wants to commission Kehinde Wiley.
She wants renaissance prints behind her mulatto skin,
gold lamé and a big ass frame inside the First
Museum.
She was caught between two allegiances, different,
yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing
that bound and suffocated her. Whatever steps
she took, or if she took none at all, something
would be crushed. Crushed?
Mixed Bitch don’t know her Daddy.
Mixed Bitch don’t know her Daddy.
Mixed Bitch
don’t know
her Daddy.
But ain’t she still allowed to love herself?
Mixed Bitch lets herself love—
the black inside: the white inside: the black of herself.
2016
Regular
Contemporary
2021
Identity
Intersectionality & Culture
Alliteration
the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession
Allusion
an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference
Bleeding Title
when the title of a poem acts as the first line
Caesura
a break between words within a metrical foot
Repetition
a recurrence of the same word or phrase two or more times
Rhetorical Question
a question asked for effect, not necessarily to be answered