The Not Angela Davis Poem

The Black Panther is not Angela Davis.

The mind does not grow like hair

We can not affirm

size and mastery sisters,

dehydrated “Wanted” posters

famed to mythic proportions,

picked out like Afros in

August heat.

She is the book satchel,

the girl walking home

from the little red schoolhouse,

a devotion to walking

backwards in rain,

measuring the sand slowing

raw beneath feet.

sinking opportunity.

She drinks from the same whale

as Jonah

where knowledge feeds,

laying the tongue

of darkness.

Whales know not of speed

but, at the right moment,

waves of continuum.

(waves of continuum.

The ocean becomes so still

Jesus walks the

path cut by angels,

mortar cleaved to imperceptible brick.

Her reflection treads water,

stirred like angry men

Clarity is the thirst of blind gods,

the breath of dead poets,

she took the eye from the oracle,

the hands from Imhotep,

fingers edifying across ancient leagues.

She is the word,

In Greek: Angellos,

German: Kurier,

French: Messnager

In Russian: посыльный

     Cuban: Mensajera,

Angel,

Angela,

Angela,

Fists clenched

to the stomach’s growl.

Angela Davis is always hungry

the lips of GebreSelassie parched before white tape lines.

She is Pheidippides, bursting from the blood dusty battlefield.

We, victorious.

Patrick Nally and Shayla Lawson 2007

Copyright © 2007 Shayla Lawson.

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