black joy

joy is the way

Black skin glistens

during golden hour

and curls dance freely

under waning sunlight,

cookouts with the fam,

soul food wafting down

Melanin Lane,

a good hair day

after what feels like a lifetime

of broken comb teeth

snapped hair bands and

lost bobby pins,

the sigh of relief

when the criminal

on tv doesn’t look like you,

Black Barbies on retail shelves,

in the music industry,

wherever fine music is sold,

the timbre of Aretha’s voice

on the radio and the way the car

turns up when “Doo Wop (That Thing)”

comes on, when moms

scratch scalps between parts

and braids finally stop tugging

on your skin and your forehead can drop

perpetual surprised look,

unpackaging new silk bonnets,

the tried tenderness of collard greens

cooked just right, hoop earrings

that don’t get caught in hair strands,

knowing you’re pretty and not

just pretty for a Black girl,

dancing the Cupid Shuffle,

dodging kids who fly up

and down the street on bicycles

they just learned to ride,

your parent’s exclamations of

“look at us go”

every time Black people

make headlines and not obituaries,

the way we make the color orange pop,

and purple,

and yellow,

and pink,

and green,

and every color under the damn sun,

creating magic when mixed with melanin,

joy is that melanated magic

because melanin is and forever will be

magical.