I began to drown

It will not be news to you
That the little mermaid is a black girl.

If you’re honest
You knew this all along.
Who else is made to sell
Her tongue for passage?

Most of us did not survive the flight overboard,
Descent into blue/ blue almost unto black.

The sun ran from us.
The light went soft
As a baby’s head.

And only those of us who kept
Our true names locked tight
In our mouths found memory
A good substitute
For oxygen.

Living hundreds of years weightless
Without struggle or triumph
Fashioning homes of coral
Lit by clean white bone.

But even where I swam
I felt your soul crack
Along Its sutures
Under your father’s blind fist
And I began to drown.