Bean Pie
the law forbade us
we still quilted maps
out of constellations
and wove our freedom
between big dipper and needle
liberation gripped us by the nap
commanding us: be separate but
obedient little margins
every Black Wall street sent up in flames
we rebuilt it each time
unhooked noosed necks
kept birthing new sons
kept singing new hymns
till our yards became dusty with ashen crosses
till Jesus was just another blue-eyed man
the clouds never spared us none
refused us like we wasn’t kinfolk
like saltwater wasn’t fresh
in our bones
if it had rained buttermilk
we would have made a pie outta of that too
but my grandfather had no business begging
for new realities to waltz themselves in
the beans were never sweet
he just added a little sugar
in your eyes navy beans were only a threat
because they reminded you we are amongst the living
No, I don’t trust the sky
or the gods
of fairness. I give it
three months, maybe four
before some show-boat-y
man with really bad hair decides to make us
the enemy again. Really?
My whole life I grew up wanting
to protect things:
fragile twigs, dopy slugs
never quick enough but
always feeling mesmerized
after a particularly violent rain; the way water trickles away from the sidewalk blindly
into the outstretched arms of
street gutter or curb.
———–
Sagirah Shahid is a Minneapolis, Minnesota based writer. Primarily a poet, her work often seeks to make sense of the complexities surrounding the human experience. A 2015-2016 winner of the Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series Award in poetry, Sagirah’s work has been published or is forthcoming in: The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Mizna, Bluestem, For Harriet, Black Fox, Knockout Literary Magazine, Switchback, and Qu Literary Journal
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