from When Rap Spoke Straight to God

1 Minute Read Time

At a bar, a man says Love the hair, says it’s
the best hair, baby.	               I’m Republican
                                                       but would totally go liberal for you.


At a gas station, a man’s Damn girl, those tits
knocks me into the pump and I, too, can
be machine. Shudder. Waiting for use. Tick.	        Queue.

*

When I was young, in our basement, where Africa
hung on the wall, my parents danced to Isaac Hayes’s

Hot Buttered Soul. I insisted its real name,
Hot Monkey Love, was better. Lil’ bit racist.

It happens. So I tell myself.

                                                        One time, Dad tried
to race a smoke on the side of the house he thought
we couldn’t see, maybe hoping the wind
would wash off the smell of a cop’s night shift,
maybe refill the sockets of his knocked-out teeth.

That’s when I realized that breath was white.

*

Between my legs, the eve of day’s
coming darkness stained with a word
sounding something like a destination—
 
When did we get to nigger? Just
how far is it to nigger?

                                               Here.

Erica Dawson

is the author of three books of poetry: When Rap Spoke Straight to God (Tin House, 2018), The Small Blades Hurt (Measure Press, 2014), and Big-Eyed Afraid (Waywiser Press, 2007). She holds an MFA from Ohio State University and a PhD from University of Cincinnati’s Department of English. She has won numerous prizes, including the 2018 Florida Book Award, the 2016 Poets’ Prize, the 2006 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. Her poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Orion, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals and anthologies. She lives in the Baltimore-DC area and served as the guest poetry editor for our Issue 22.1.

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