WITHIN A NAME...

Today my name is ODDITY.
Yesterday my name was NONENTITY.
Tomorrow my name will be affirmative action.
Pushing daises, hooked to kill.
Coiled but ready
Leave scars from the old whippings. Rippled and ridged
Blacks Bitter, they think.
Deep black laugh, like nights thunder. I image as they call.
My friends think my name MISERY.
The police think my name NIGGER.
My family thinks my name LEGACY.
Old master calls me FETCH.
Breath cut out, cut in like a saw cutting wood.
Pushing daises, hooked to kill.
Coiled but ready
Leave scars from the old whippings. Rippled and ridged.
Then he walks way. Big boots.
Black boots, but wrong kind of black.
Bad black, not good black like me and us.
Not good black, like my black.
The skin black, as the blackest ebony wood, rich and dark
And beautiful.
Blacks Bitter, They call.
I had to think to hear the breathing, of night sounds.
That raw night is the name I whisper, and echoes whisper in
Return.
A woman child,
A girl growing up quickly, with hurt and hardship.
Yet my name is of one, many be named FYREE.
I’m Fyree and the other part of my name be the same
As old master.
But is nothing.
I don’t count the back part of my name no more than I count
Old master himself.
No more than I count what they call me.
I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
Got myself a new name,
God’s pilgrim. Look at me, and my name. my name is Fyree.