Black women walk slowly over hot cracked sidewalks
Sweat drips from her brow
Magic solutions are solidified in the heat of her mind
Making assistance and pennies stretch to feed five
Turning manager's specials into hearty meals
Black women walk slowly holding the future
Arms ache carrying the little ones
Love from her heart filling her little ones up to their eyes
Protecting their bodies from harm yet fortifying them with pride
Clothing them in armor for their own life battle
Black women walk slowly with weathered hands
Blood thick like syrup from tiny cuts
Heals daily from edges of machines and work voices
Showering rains are glass shards from the ‘ceiling’ still prick
Totalling blood loss from micro aggressions doesn't soothe the scab
Black women walk slowly with tensed back muscles
Burdens of history, kin, holding peace unwavering
Heavy laden with lamenting loss and caring for elders
Pushing perseverance with each hip beyond incarceration or abandonment
Bending to gravity for a moment, only to best Newton's Second
Black women walk slowly knees popping over throbbing feet
Race but don't run; hurdles lie in wait
Restore the calluses and corns when time permits
Stopping is an action omitted in her prime directive
Sprinting around her doesn't lessen her resolve, she has to get there...eventually.
Placing gloves over her hands
The papers she files
The glass ceilings she breaks
But even in the triumphant shower of the shattered ceiling
Come the micro cuts the slivers of stinging aggressions
How pleased we are to have you up here with us
As if she didn't belong, as if she hadn't earned it
Your pleasure is not her measure
Her blood is thick to quickly seal the wound,
Conceal the hurt, scar over to heal
So she can withstand more cuts
Without going mad
Her back aches
She works jobs plural.
Job after job
She holds herself up straight
She stands tall in the indignation of asking for help
Distant sisters balance water on their heads and babes on their backs
Their feet ache from long distances trudged through
Patches of ashy white calluses form on the earth facing side of her feet.
The weight of a generation is a heavy burden but a delicate one
Her fingers nimbly braid, plait, and twist the little ones hair.
Her throat is dry from humming the old songs to keep her going
Dried from singing sweetly to the elders, to the sickly, to the teething baby
Her shoulder slopes down.
Her knees crack and pop in the bend
She records and watches and shares
The last moments of her law abiding beloved
She speaks, she fights, she shares her pain vividly
She seeks justice but is calm and waits
Black women walk slowly
The race is not given to the swift, nor the strong but to them who endureth until the end
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