“Warning: Black boys are in danger of becoming extinct” — trey anthony
black, tossed to a scattering brown.

how does this even tuck in?

chaffs they kite into stars,

brittle as a badge chewing a whole brand— me & my teenage boys,

known for all of our queer bodies.
we shove to flight,

& die with white greetings.

knifing phrases, like “negro bears no ego, so what’cha gon do bingo!”
we sponge it into our loin:

glyphs that trace their letters to our ribs.

black can’t mat his skin for holes to breathe,

the imams would kill him on their kneels.
prayer kills faster than grief,

makes you a preying thing:

like loss barreling through your skin,

poisoning your boyhood.
black foamed like white heavens,

mealing from shack to shack,

bright & faded,

like an elder skein.

how does this even tuck in without a song?

chants, to prune our skin & seduce it colors.

& teach it not to die,

& not to be equally yoked with white believers.
& not to believe that the sky do not believe in our craft;

how it wave says I’m one amongst dust till I groom my skin.

like how does this tuck in with all blacks,

when we fold our hands to fake flaps?
why should it be us selling our own kites to main boys, living in principal streets?

the slum should love our records,

if all that’s here is fleeting.
I parent my body into adopting a boy skinny as me,

barely shaved, with an accent for grief:

a language blacks knew before they knew their skin.