If you bite me without saying grace, have you sinned?

What if I decide to take. Eat?

Am I then an Eve?

Don’t banish me because I’m hungry

Banish me because you are.

And that’s not my fault.

All my life I’ve settled for meat and grain and now

Fruit! Something sweet,

With juices that mimic those of my own arousal.

Finally A food my body identifies with.

No man will shame me for take and eat.

I will engorge myself until my palms are red as pomegranates

sticky slapping any man who will police my nudity

my decisions, my body, my sex, my anger

and whatever the hell I have on my head at the time

whether it be hair, horsemeat, hay, hummus, or Halos

it is my head and I choose the crown.

The oppression is not in my choices

it’s in the persecution of them.

they’ve always said the black woman keeps a list of complaints

does the cow not scream as the butcher makes fine slices

and dissects the worlds food from its gut?

keeping us cut up fertilizes your world view

but what we bleed out…

black and speckled universe, darkness, soul, life,

and birthing hips your mama don’t know nothing about