Myisha Cherry

Langston,
I’m tryin,
Lawd knows I am tryin
to hold
fast to him
but he’s too fast for me

I want to experience the 1920’s
in harlem
on lenox
in cotton clubs
with the Duke our DJ
no music videos
only words on paper
coloreds anxious to read

I want to see the 1920”s
black art
writer stars
debate with McKay
get an autograph from Hurston
a framed picture with me and Hughes
I’m in Love

I want to live in the 1920’s
years before depression
give my soul a renaissance
give me hours in jazz age
so I can improv for the first time
my life

I’ll date a smart man like Dubois
wear hair straighten by Walker
smile confident with my Howard degree
with words still smelling like
Virginia fried crabs

bye bye Mississippi
later Alabama
I want to be in my twenties in the 1920’s
time, lets go back
ancestors reorganize my debut
I got the weary blues for the 20’s

Bessie Smith please beg for me
Marcus get on your soap box
not with back to Africa speeches
but with Jamaican oracles of ‘back to black” decades
where black decadence
formed barricades
in Harlem
trapped in creativity from slave descendants

I want to be in my 20’s in the 1920’s in Harlem
yeah
and I’ll be sure to write about it
with proud black vernacular
sure to make Richard Wright
mad as hell

Mr. Baldwin:
I’m tired too
and I’ve gone to the mountains
to tell those who are high
that us low ones
want to see what sky
smells like

I’ve talked politely
but if they keep ignoring me

here what I say…

there will be
a fire next time
coming to their
plateaus
so they can finally see
what Hell feels like

and I wont run either
I’ll sit back
on my hammock of chains

read Langston
and critique Wright

and smell the ashes and debris
as they make perfume in the sky
for all of Harlem to breathe

sincerely:
ANXIOUS

One day when I make it
She’ll say “thats my sister”
They’ll say “thats my aunt”
She’ll yell from heaven “thats my daughter”
But untill then
in my today
I’m just barely making it
and yet I still hear
them talking
of me
proudly
LOUD

I want you so bad
I rush

I’m sorry

I just want you here

forgive me

I will take my time
and wait for you
to come to me
beautifully