America

By Asante Keron Hamid

Picking and choosing what to
keep and what to crop.

Pick of the litter. Pick
of the cotton. No
Afro picks. No
cornrows.

Three-fifths out of the photograph
and one stanza too censored for an
epitaph and one bullet too deceased
for the polygraph to detect our truth.

Blue in black water and white up
brown nostril and white on black
chalkboard and nappy hair knotted
into spiritual song. Strum along:

We will not die, USA.
P.S.A: We can’t die.
Shackles, whips, chains,
tar and feather, names —
We won’t die, USA.

Asante Keron Hamid is a poet / writer born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. His work can be found in The Ibis Head Review, Dissident Voice, and Tuck Magazine among other publications, and he can be found on Instagram @asante.avenida.

Photo credit: USDA NRCS Texas via a Creative Commons license.