you don’t like what you see

You can’t stop mourning 

everything all the time.
 

The 90s, the black Maxima with a tail, 

CD wrappers, proximity to the earth. 

 

Glamour and sweating in your sheets. 

Speaking tongues. JLo even. Men even. 

 

You are a woman now 

but you have always had skin. 

 

Here are some ways in which 

you are not free: the interiors 

 

are all wrong, you are a drought 

sprawling. When you see god 

 

you don’t like what you see. 

It is never enough to be born 

 

again and again. 

 

You like it at church when 

strangers hold your hand. 

 

You have a mouth men bless. 

You look good enough to bury. 

 

[Morgan Parker {1987- } 'Everything Will Be Taken Away {after Adrian Piper}', from Magical Negro]