Poetry

American Income

by Afaa Michael Weaver

The survey says all groups can make more money

if they lose weight except black men...men of other colors

and women of all colors have more gold, but black men

are the summary of weight, a lead thick thing on the scales,

meters spinning until they ring off the end of the numbering

of accumulation, how things grow heavy, fish on the

ends of lines that become whales, then prehistoric sea life

beyond all memories, the billion days of human hands

working, doing all the labor one can imagine, hands

now the population of cactus leaves on a papyrus moon

waiting for the fire, the notes from all their singing gone

up into the salt breath of tears of children that dry, rise

up to be the crystalline canopy of promises, the infinite

gone fishing days with the apologies for not being able to love

anymore, gone down inside earth somewhere where

women make no demands, have fewer dreams of forever,

these feet that marched and ran and got cut off, these hearts

torn out of chests by nameless thieves, this thrashing

until the chaff is gone out and black men know the gold

of being the dead center of things, where pain is the gateway

to Jerusalems, Bodhi trees, places for meditation and howling,

keeping the weeping heads of gods in their eyes.