Kevin Young: "Negative"

Wake to find everything black

what was white, all the vice

versa—white maids on TV, black

sitcoms that star white dwarfs

cute as pearl buttons. Black Presidents,

Black Houses. White horse

candidates. All bleach burns

clothes black. Drive roads

white as you are, white songs

on the radio stolen by black bands

like secret pancake recipes, white back-up

singers, ball-players & boxers all

white as tar. Feathers on chickens

dark as everything, boiling in the pot

that called the kettle honky. Even

whites of the eye turn dark, pupils

clear & changing as a cat's.

Is this what we've wanted

& waited for? to see snow

covering everything black

as Christmas, dark pages written

white upon? All our eclipses bright,

dark stars shooting across pale

sky, glowing like ash in fire, shower

every skin. Only money keeps

green, still grows & burns like grass

under dark daylight.

From To Repel Ghosts: The Remix (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)