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      May 27, 2017Malachi JonesSmudge

      For His stripes, I might have received double.
      And He never saved me from my beating.
      He didn’t flinch from that cross,
      from Papa’s neck. As He wept. I wept,
      my bare chest and stomach pressed against
      Papa’s knee. Papa kept the cotton picking
      arch in my back. I used to wonder why
      his hands were so worn but his most enduring
      labor was to “wear me out.”
      His job to “teach me what the world can’t.” To whip
      out the spirit of disobedience. Power
      is the rack of waist belts, sting of a slipper,
      choosing your own switch—
      Too small, sharper swipes; too big, bigger
      bruises. Why did I always pick too small? I still
      got the bruises—“tough love,” and
      grandfather’s black hand hoisted
      in the air. That’s what I thought
      Power is, but what it
      looks like is white
      skin that they didn’t have but feared.
      Grandma held me by the wrist when I was young
      so this white world wouldn’t kill me in my youth.
      A good one is better than a dead one.
      A bruised one better than a bloody one.
      Mommy stripped me to my socks
      so they wouldn’t have to in the prison, she made
      a mirror of our past. Stripped down
      on an auction block to show how
      well behaved we were. How we were good enough
      to never have to whip. I never
      deserved to be whupped.
      My elders or my massa, I don’t know,
      who’s who, because they both want to price me
      high to this white world. The mirror they hold
      to my face frightens me. My eyes see,
      past, present, and future—the same
      image. A black mass against a bright canvas.

      from 2017 RYPA

      Malachi Jones (age 15)

      Why do you like to write poetry?

      “Writing has been my greatest interest since I was six. To my surprise and my mother’s, who would later tell me she didn’t think I was going to be a good reader, I was good. ‘Good’ is very subjective in first grade, but ‘writing time’ quickly became, and still is, my most anticipated part of a school day. I’ve traded in the extreme vagueness and, frankly, nonsense poetic syntax for, what I hope is, more discernible quality writing.”

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