The Black Woman

The black woman is not as tough as she seems.
Take down that Amazonian or angry hoochie mama facade
and there you find a frightened, abandoned little girl huddled in the dark.
Body laced in tears. Hat topped with dying moss.
Shoes made of emeralds cause her feet to bleed as she walks
across the desolation of five centuries. Unsung and forgotten
even by her own black men, she summons strength
because she is expected to be strong in loneliness, brutality;
invincible amid ridicule. Her own people confine her
to a stereotype, exile, the false security of the herd.
No need that the greater society does too. Then she conforms, agrees
to the stereotype she does not really understand or know.
She allows herself to be among the flowers of the forgotten.
The black woman is not as tough as she seems.