Malika Booker

We danced to rancorous tunes on spiked ground and our knees sang with each puncture, so that several agouti colonies, melanic in our russet strengths, learned as wild rats to scurry or guard ourselves from skin-spite. Immune from nocturnal drowsiness we strong-bellied creatures assembled, campaigned; gyrated to blowed trumpets and cradled songs, but, us black rats with our rogue swagger that spoke of foreign ports, pranced our survival shuffle in night’s murky dance halls. Each step our single prayer, each jab our benediction. This tart sermon containered our septic hurts and lean swaggers. On the strike of dawn, we skittered from shadows, the redeemed walking day’s straight-road into warpland.