NYU Black Renaissance Noire NYU Black Renaissance Noire V. 16.1 | Page 15

Smoke screen

13

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

For every hard-working father ever employed at HC&S, especially mine
Was he a green, long sleeve
jacket & god-fearing man?
On the job, bloodshot.
Marrying metal in his heavy
gloves, bringing justice to his father,
who was also a smoking man.
No bathroom breaks, no helmets, no safe words.
He whistled sugarcane through his neck,
through his unventilated wife,
his chronic black ash daughters.
This is what a burn schedule looks like.
And if believing in god was a respiratory issue,
he was like his father.
Marrying metal to make a family.
At home he smoked before he slept.
In the corner with the door
ajar, cigarette poised like a first-born:
well-behaved, rehearsed.
Curtains drawn, bedrooms medicated.
He was always burning into something.
Part-dark, part-pupils.
For my father, the night was best alone.
When only he could see through
the world and forgive it.