Prayer 4 My Nieces

My nieces and I weren’t always family, but
We spun ourselves around our gums until we became
Familiar. 

When we said my nieces we were at a rectangular wooden table.
Before we said my nieces we surrounded that table with the intention
Of writing a workshop into being, without need for translation;
With the idea that we could switch codes, sure, but we could also
Dial them long distance, paint our palms fluorescent orange
And pray, and breathe, and pray that I will be able to come
Close again to a love now distant. Your frail frame sure of itself and
Its clean grip on the world, loving its way through my shoulders, until
I lather myself into the relative safety of your hug,
Even if just for one more time; and maybe I could put that embrace
In an essay, or a poem.

 And when we said my nieces we proved
How much that intention failed.

When we said my nieces
We said my niggas but
You heard my nieces
Because, like we say often, nobody listens to niggas.
They put them in corners without babying them first,
And it’s unfortunate because
We often have some shit to say, and
More often than that, even, it slaps or if not then
Maybe it just swoons, maybe it sonatas a crow,
One that doesn’t string us up like decoration.
One that carries our berry in its beak not with the aim to ravage,
But with hope to nourish a nest.

 So when she said my nigga
In her poem and I heard my nigga
I felt the twigging of a flock,
The constructed steel of a murder—see,
That’s how I can tell you’re not listening, we’ve been said
We don’t die, we multiply.
And when she said my nigga
In her poem and you heard
A sanitation for the captor, the thief, the capitalist & then heard
The rusted edge of a hacksaw, the invitation for you to say the word
“Just to clarify!”
We proved another truth we know too well:

 The sawed off shotgun we hold at arm's length to the world,
The one passed down like it’s a consequence of our genome,
The one that if you didn’t have, the wolf/fiend/man
On the other end would gladly gash your throat
Into an ending—that is not the weapon that will prosper.
No, it is the razor clenched tenderly in your jaw that will be your 
Amazing grace and so as we left the classroom we

 Held each other, 
Softer still than the blades that puffed choirs in our cheeks,
And laughed and laughed and laughed:

 My niece, my niece, you funny ass niece,
You beautiful niece, my loving niece,
I love my nieces, I love each and every one of 
My nieces. I love all my nieces