Someone will        love you     many will      love

you         many will brother you   some of these

loves will        bother you   some   will      leave you

one might        haunt   you      hunt you in your

sleep        make you       weep the tearless kind of

weep the         kind of weep   that drowns your

organs     slowly    there are little oars  in your body

little boats   grab onto them and row and        row

someone will tell you      no       but you won’t   know

he is    right until you have   already        wrung your

own heart dry    your hands dripping knives    until

you have    already   reached your hands into       his

body and put them through his        heart     love is

the only thing that       is not    an       argument

Copyright © 2017 by Victoria Chang. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 29, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

after Morgan Parker, after Wu-Tang

in the morning I think about money

green horned lord of my waking

forest in which I stumbled toward no salvation

prison made of emerald & pennies

in my wallet I keep anxiety & a condom

I used to sell my body but now my blood spoiled

All my favorite songs tell me to get money

I’d rob a bank but I’m a poet

I’m so broke I’m a genius

           If I was white, I’d take pictures of other pictures & sell them

I come from sharecroppers who come from slaves who do not come from kings

                                              sometimes I pay the weed man before I pay the light bill

sometimes is a synonym for often

I just want a grant or a fellowship or a rich white husband & I’ll be straight

I feel most colored when I’m looking at my bank account

I feel most colored when I scream ball so hard motherfuckas wanna find me

I spent one summer stealing from ragstock

If I went to jail I’d live rent-free but there is no way to avoid making white people richer

                                              A prison is a plantation made of stone & steel

           Being locked up for selling drugs = Being locked up for trying to eat

a bald fade cost 20 bones now a days

what’s a blacker tax than blackness?

                                              what cost more than being American and poor?

here is where I say reparations.

here is where I say got 20 bucks I can borrow?

           student loans are like slavery but not but with vacation days but not but police

I don’t know what it says about me when white institutions give me money

how much is the power ball this week?

I’mma print my own money and be my own god and live forever in a green frame

my grandmamma is great at saving money

           before my grandfather passed he showed me where he hid his money & his gun

my aunt can’t hold on to a dollar, a job, her brain

I love how easy it is to be bad with money

don’t ask me about my taxes

the b in debt is a silent black boy trapped