My black is brown

My ancestor’s blood

marks the ground

on which many walk 

and talk

over

an obscured memory

that separates wrong from right

black from white

and brown

the silent sea

speaks of stories

unheard by the unseen

stories that run

like bleeding rivers

black like the brown backs 

of those

beaten 

niggerized

by colonial forces

that turned mom and pop 

into livestock

this inaugural sin

would become the American dream

To those hoping to be

what wouldn’t “be” 

without the brown people made black

whose legacy

is picking up America’s slack

yet, Ameri-can (and does) convince the masses

otherwise