when the black boy climbs out of my womb: 

        how to peel dynamite from his bones? 

        how to strip tornado’s hum from his ears?

        how to weed graveyard from his garden of tongue?

        what rainbow of prayer to pull between teeth?

        how to blind him from liquor’s sun of stupor?

        how to sow whisper into his hurricane of hips?

        what blizzard of plea to freeze his tremor of feet?

        how to lift him from streetlight blaze?

        which revengeful breast fed him this poison?

        which breast gilded his mouth with song? 

leadbelly tyehimba jess