Postcards
_________
Once upon a time.
my daddy told me
you listen to me this one time boy
and if you don’t remember anything else
you remember this.
they made postcards about you.
hung you up to dry
made an event of it and brought they children too
posed and smiled while you swung silent.
One time during adolescence.
after a win of a lifetime
we spoke of turning coliseums inside out
making strangers cheer to black movement
then. my daddy told me.
that sounds nice
but don’t you forget
they made postcards about you.
licked a stamp and slapped it on the back
mailed your image across the Indian’s land.
sent them to they family for the holidays.
they cheered then too.
The time I left home.
and declared an artist was leaving the nest
going to the city to become one of them ones
my daddy told me
now why you wanna go and do that love
going to them white schools.
fucking them white girls.
reading them white books
don’t you go up there and study jack kerouac
and forget to study amiri baraka
don’t let them make you a beatnik
you write about us, even if you are the last poet
because in amerikkka
the hippies grew up and became they parents
remember son.
they made postcards about you
and wrote love poems in the margins
captured you in a lifeless pose
and ended their prose with ‘sincerely’
The last time.
my daddy told me
I know you ain’t surprised.
everyone but you
cause I taught you as a boy
that they made postcards about you
and no one ever got punished.
nor persecuted or prosecuted.
not a one. not a one. not a one.
for that barbarism. those unjustified murders
them folk in the postcards still here
they children too
that’s why i told you as a boy
cause you needed to know
they never left.
just put on they red hats and white shirts and blue suits
kept swallowing they little white lies
and now they hide in plain white site
i taught you.
they still here
but now that you’re a man
let me tell you something else, son.
and if you don’t remember anything else.
you remember this.
you still here, too.