We Rise

All the blacks

got washed today.

She soaked them—

    in warm,

    lukewarm

          water—

gently.

They puffed.

Slowly

  they rose.

At first,

   they drowned.

Not able to breathe—

      gurgling,

         gurgling,

beneath the silence of water,

   making sounds

          inaudible.

She

pushed them in

  further,

     further—

so that

each membrane

could be stripped—

of grime,

of sweat,

of dirt,

of

    guilt.

The guilt

that they are black

and cannot

show the stains.

Cannot

cry out

for attention

when they are in pain.

To help them

heave

out of their blackness,

under the hue—

  yellow

    green

      blue—

(the blue as pale

   as a robin’s egg.)

They want

to feel

  the lightness

       of white.

But white—

she too

  had her own pain.

   Remember?

Not today.

Today is not about her.

It is about them.

And so,

they push

  against the mighty.

They rise.

In volume.

In entirety.

They have weight now.

Because they are

no longer

one.

They

come together.

They

lift.

They

breathe.

And

  breathe.

They do not wish

  to be rinsed.

Because

they know—

there was

no dirt

to begin with.

None.

No dirt

has ever

touched them—

as if

  they were

      sacred.

And the world

waits.

And watches.

As they

emerge—

and

  spread

     themselves

          out

            to dry—

To become

weightless

again.

Weightless