Rose Maria Woodson

WATER

We pledged allegiance to the flag
that never pledged allegiance to us.
We were the thin,
are the thin,
water you sell,
water you sail upon.  Blacks
slipped through the cracks
of the 13th amendment.
Black women spilled through
the colander  of the 19th amendment.
Our descent was fluid, ongoing.
Our descent is fluid, ongoing.
We flow around the edge of egos.
We flow, tears,
soaked in euro-stained
history.  One hero:  Carver with the peanut.
We flow, like tears,
like streams, around generational boulders.
We find ourselves,
drop by drop.
Drop by drop.  Social osmosis.
We survive in currents.
We are painfully clear.  You look right through us.
You think us static even when we flow.
We are camo-citizens,
hiding in plain sight,
in the tension of blood,
the tenseness of children.
Even in the fever of nightmares,
we could never birth monsters
as monstrous as unrighteous whiteness.
No horns, red eyes, fangs, claws, conjured caves
do justice to the maw, to the insatiable
craving for our sweat, screams & dreams.
The color of your skin
is your golden calf.
You live in a desert of mythology,
a mirage of open doors.
We live in a land of mobs,
in the sieve of society
penned by the founding rapists.
For us, the constitution was written on rice paper.
It dissolved in our tears.
It dissolves in our tears.
We were a reign,
are a rain falling through
the gap of rhetoric & reality,
the gap of Jefferson & Hemmings.
Black blood circles the drain 
of democracy.  We pledged allegiance
to the flag that never pledged allegiance
to us.

ROSE MARIA WOODSON HOLDS AN MA IN CREATIVE WRITING FROM NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY AND AN MA IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FROM NORTH PARK UNIVERSITY. SHE IS THE AUTHOR OF TWO CHAPBOOKS, SKIN GIN (2017 WINNER IN THE QUILLSEDGE PRESS CHAPBOOK CONTEST) AND THE OMBRE OF ABSENCE (DANCING GIRL PRESS) AS WELL AS THE MINI-CHAPBOOK, DEAR ALFREDO (PEN AND ANVIL PRESS). HER POEMS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED IN NUMEROUS JOURNALS INCLUDING  INKWELL, CLARION, GRAVEL,  THIRD WEDNESDAY MAGAZINE, MAGNOLIA: A JOURNAL OF WOMEN’S SOCIALLY ENGAGED LITERATURE, VOLUME II, JET FUEL REVIEW, STIRRING, MUDDY RIVER POETRY REVIEW AND THE MOJAVE RIVER REVIEW. HER SHORT STORY, “CUPCAKE PAYNE”, APPEARED IN ISSUE 46 OF THE OYEZ REVIEW.