We'll Always Have Négritude

won’t we? he asks, reaching for my tiny brown

hand. when credits roll in black & white,

& FIN flashes bright across the final frame,

we’ll still be black as vice—won’t we?

he wants to know what happens

to The Last Black Man on Earth

in The Last Black Man on Earth without waiting

for the tentative sequel, after we applaud & lights

come up & someone nameless sweeps our popcorn kernels

into a vortex-shaped box. is that where

The Last Black Man on Earth goes after we’ve

learned no animals were harmed in the making

of this production? does he fade into the white

light of Colored Heaven (which is a real place),

or fall to a fate worse than death—Vermont?

don’t worry, i say to my panicked date,

his hands atremble. The Last Black Man on Earth

finds his way home through the overturned cars

and fallen trees. the sun begins again, & so does he.

2

even if, in 2079, The Race is completely diluted,

& everyone looks like a modern-day mock-up

of Jesus, & “What’s happening, CC?” means

“Caucasoid Contingent,” & no one can remember

the Good Ole Days of dogs & hoses, marching on,

the South Bronx, Barack, Michelle, greens, red drink,

the electric slide, or the obtuse angle bodies made when raising

an arm, crowned with dark fist, we will still have our hair.

crinkle, crinkle little star. the kinks stay in at night.

you can take the people out of Africa.

you can lead a girl to lye. even if all our sky is red

smoke & dark rain & a volcanic heat signaling the end,

this fiber will fight on, will ivy the walls of our

tissue paper planet, the one we came to own, learned

to destroy. my locs will be the chain-link fence keeping

out those aliens, & your afro will be the cumulus clouds

cottoning the sky, the unpicked cotton sky. i’ll climb

a two-strand through the gauzy ozone. you’ll trace

your way into this cornrowed maze.