by MEH
how to run [from slave catchers, the klan, crooked cops,
especially when finding the distinction difficult]. how to
keep our own counsel. to code-switch. to sing songs
in mother-tongues they will emulate and sharecrop
in blackface or while ignoring their origin—jazz, blues,
rock and roll, R&B, rap. how to hide our babies from
[see original list], christening them with names proper
to replace stolen drums, lands, gods. how not to list
the skills we already possessed, were compelled to
employ—navigation, cultivation, curing smallpox—
knowing they will fall on ungrateful ears. how to turn
our every cheek. to be more Christ-like than those who
disgraced the religion they forced upon us. to embody
the fruits of the spirit—especially patience and self-
control—in arms, legs, backs chiseled in cottonfields,
defined by bearing the lash of injustice. how to refrain
from calling down a legion of angels, or easily poisoning
their food, or slitting an oppressor’s throat in their sleep,
at least for now.
Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six poetry collections including Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020) and the Colored page (Sundress Publications, 2022). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes. MEH’s poetry appears or is forthcoming in The New Verse News, Cola Literary Review, The Florida Review, Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, Pangyrus, Ploughshares, Poetry East, Shenandoah, and The Worcester Review among others. MEH’s an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.