Safia Elhillo
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH YELLOW DRESS
i believe that sometimes we do not die
i will not believe that to be housed in a body
that is black is to be dressed always
in black for the funeral we live forever
our mouths open & a song falls out thick
with a saxophone’s syrup & all our dead
in the ground make this land ours & all
our missing fathers make us everything’s child
today i did not dress for a funeral today i wear
the yellow dress & laugh with all my teeth
today my lost ones are not lost to me they live
in the wind that gathers my skirt
today this is my country today i say their names
& the all holes left behind shaped like blackgirls
& blackboys are lit up by hundreds of faraway stars
today i woke up & was not dead & tomorrow
might be different but tomorrow does not yet exist
so i hold my mother’s hand & kiss the brown valley
between each knuckle my brother opens his mouth
to laugh & the light pours in through the gap in his teeth
& no one will ever again say my eyes are too serious
i press my body to a man that i find beautiful & sway
to a song that knows us i live forever
with my feet in my grandmother’s lap
& i live forever by the water
with the sun spilled over me remember me this way
& when they come for me play the song i love
into the space i leave behind