A Poem For My Cousin Daniel

You’ll be nine tomorrow

don’t let anyone call you a mulatto

you’re horse on both sides

You identify as tan

After all it is the only logical

descriptive word

for your skin’s hue

but the world doesn’t adhere to reason
Daniel

your skin tanned

unlike your Mother’s walnut brown

or your Father’s peach White

eyes hazel brown

unlike your Father’s blue

or your Mother’s dark brown

hair which curly

unlike your Mother’s kinky Haitian hair

or your Father’s straight German hair

you’re a human

like your White Father

and Black Mother

you’re a Christian

like your pastor Father

and podiatrist Mother

You call yourself tan

and the term fits

wonderfully

the perfect diction

for your novel of flesh

but I often weep imagining the day

when they’ll make you call yourself

Black

and you’ll begin to feel fear

eyeing the dead faces that

stretch centuries

Christian Taylor

Emmett Till

Medgar Evers

and those unfortunate souls at the

Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church

your innocent brown eyes

Will grow deep for revenge

your voice which speaks of Iron Man and Hulk

will grow raspy with rage and anguish

Chanting Black Lives Matter

To a deaf and mute world

only then will you understand