America the OZ and Emerald City

Hatred is a glowing bile like radioactive chartreuse shards shocking skin

as pointed poignancies of polemics against me, ripping apart

something of my self

like tongue twisters lifting houses to the sky in Kansas

as I walk yellow brick roads

looking for more courage. The heart and mind,

I have, silver clad as tin man and bohemian as scarecrow in hemp fibers and straw hats.

I wear courage as my not-quite-black-nowhere-brown lion’s mane picked out afro

like I am picked out of crowds, seen like a line up and not in lion, powerful and proud.

I'm not lyin, this Wizard of Oz is tryin to melt me down like wicked witches

and the names they call Miss Mary Mack all dressed in black as Glenda the Good with goldilocks

and porcelain pores, is ethereal evermore, as angels imagined to surround

white gods with long white beards. How odd. How OZ. How obvious

the ploy the game the fairy tale, when I am the Emerald City, the country, the lush green landscape

cultivated by the captives. my ancestors of yore. So I am keeping myself. My whole self, without

exclusion, this conclusion: Courage is remembrance.