Unnatural State of the Unicorn

by Yusef Komunyakaa

Introduce me first as a man.
Don’t mention superficial laurels
the dead heap up on the living.
I am a man. Cut me & I bleed.
Before embossed limited editions,
before fat artichoke hearts marinated
in rich sauce & served with imported wines,
before antics & Agnus Dei,
before the stars in your eyes
mean birth sign or Impression,
I am a man. I’ve scuffled
in mudholes, broken teeth in a grinning skull
like the moon behind bars. I’ve done it all
to be known as myself. No titles.
I have principles. I won’t speak
on the unnatural state of the unicorn
in literature or self-analysis.
I have no birthright to prove,
no insignia, no secret
password, no fleur-de-lis.
My initials aren’t on a branding iron.
I’m standing here in unpolished
shoes & faded jeans, sweating
my manly sweat. Inside my skin,
loving you, I am this space
my body believes in.

Collected in I APOLOGIZE FOR THE EYES IN MY HEAD, Wesleyan University Press, © 1986

Most Poetry will post a poem by a Black poet each day through the month of June.

jasper texas 1998

by Lucille Clifton

for j. byrd

i am a man’s head hunched in the road.
i was chosen to speak by the members
of my body. the arm as it pulled away
pointed toward me, the hand opened once
and was gone.

why and why and why
should i call a white man brother?
who is the human in this place,
the thing that is dragged or the dragger?
what does my daughter say?

the sun is a blister overhead.
if i were alive i could not bear it.
the townsfolk sing we shall overcome
while hope bleeds slowly from my mouth
into the dirt that covers us all.
i am done with this dust. i am done.

Lucille Clifton, “jasper texas 1998” from BLESSING THE BOATS: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000. Copyright © 2000 by Lucille Clifton.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a Black poet each day through the month of June.

American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [But there never was a black male hysteria]

by Terrance Hayes

But there never was a black male hysteria
Breaking & entering wearing glee & sadness
And the light grazing my teeth with my lighter
To the night with the flame like a blade cutting
Me slack along the corridors with doors of offices
Orifices vomiting tears & fire with my two tongues
Loose & shooing under a high-top of language
In a layer of mischief so traumatized trauma
Delighted me beneath the tremendous
Stupendous horrendous undiscovered stars
Burning where I didn’t know how to live
My friends were all the wounded people
The black girls who held their own hands
Even the white boys who grew into assassins

Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 15, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets. Collected in AMERICAN SONNETS FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN, Penguin Books, 2018

MoSt will post a poem by a Black poet each day through the month of June.

At the Age of 18 – Ode to Girls of Color

by Amanda Gorman

At the age of 5
I saw how we always pick the flower swelling with the most color.
The color distinguishes it from the rest, and tells us:
This flower should not be left behind.
But this does not happen in the case of colored girls.
Our color makes hands pull back, and we, left to grow alone,
stretching our petals to a dry sun.
At the age of 12
I blinked in the majesty of the color within myself,
blinded by the knowledge that a skinny black girl, a young brown teen,
has the power to light Los Angeles all night,
the radiance to heal all the scars left on this city’s pavement.
Why had this realization taken so long,
When color pulses in all that is beauty and painting and human?
You see, long ago, they told me
that snakes and spiders have spots and vibrant bodies if they are poisonous.
In other words, being of color meant danger, warning, ‘do not touch’.
At the age of 18
I know my color is not warning, but a welcome.
A girl of color is a lighthouse, an ultraviolet ray of power, potential, and promise
My color does not mean caution, it means courage
my dark does not mean danger, it means daring,
my brown does not mean broken, it means bold backbone from working
twice as hard to get half as far.
Being a girl of color means I am key, path, and wonder all in one body.
At the age of 18
I am experiencing how black and brown can glow.
And glow I will, glow we will, vibrantly, colorfully;
not as a warning, but as promise,
that we will set the sky alight with our magic.

“At the Age of 18 – Ode to Girls of Color,” by Amanda Gorman, copyright © 2016 Amanda Gorman.

MoSt will post a poem by a Black poet each day through the month of June.

This Has Always Been Our Active Shooter Drill

by Jason Reynolds

(for Stephon Clark’s grandmother)

shave your face. a haircut
even. kiss your kids. your
partner. your parents. tell
them you listened. you kissed
their asses like you were
taught. kissed their asses and
still. walk. or run. don’t
matter. glue your identification
to your forehead. wrap yourself
in the flag. hand over heart. hit
the high note. hide your slang
under your tongue. delete
your profile. scrub the net. clean
your blood. prepare your body
for peepholes no one
will ever peer into.

Copyright © 2018 by Jason Reynolds. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 31, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.

Jason is the Library of Congress’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.