dream where every black person is standing by the ocean by Danez Smith

dream where every black person is standing by the ocean

  

& we say to her

                         what have you done with our kin you swallowed?

  

& she says

                         that was ages ago, you’ve drunk them by now

  

& we don’t understand

  

& then one woman, skin dark as all of us

                         walks to the water’s lip, shouts Emmett, spits

  

&, surely, a boy begins

                         crawling his way to shore