Dear greedy white hands,
Because of you there are now
songs I will never sing
foods that will never touch my tongue
heats of my home that will never know my body
I will never know why my hair curls like it does
or why my eyes are this color
Because of you, I cannot shake the feeling
that this is a temporary home, this will always be
a temporary home
Because of you, I cannot fully love
the stripes and stars in my heart
but cannot dig deep enough to find my flag
because you tarnished it with salt water and shackles
I associate my great great great
grandmother’s story with those in my history
books because I never got to ask her and she
never got to tell
but that is all she could have been
based on the black ink on the pages of my books
Because of you, I will never know what the
reddish tint of my skin means, why my nose
fits on my face the way it does
Because of you, my grandmother doesn’t tell
me the stories of her life
because of you there is a silence
of storytelling in my blood
And now, because of you, my children
and their children will not know and
not know and not know and