From Years Past
Some call it love,
but were you
Cuban,
I'd learn
Spanish
to ask
your father
for
your hand
in
your native tongue.
© 2016 Marcus Harris
Three O'Clock Smoke Break
Tired, purple lips part -
smoke escapes, laced with musings
of what might have been.
© 2005 Marcus Harris
Healing
Stirring the stillness,
they welcome the dawn
with avian calls
growing in
strength and timbre,
cries of desperation yielding to
pleas of relief for
the passing darkness -
songs not of strength,
but vulnerability -
a surrender
to solace,
to peace,
and as I turn to
an old picture of us,
faded and worn in the
reflected light,
I realize
what
I'm really
hearing
is the sound of
healing.
© 2016 Marcus Harris
From #snapshot
Nana Says
Nana says real love:
marital bed, not silk sheets -
the cow, not the milk.
© 2017 Marcus Harris
Kidulthood
they say
we're not really adults
till we're
25...
when we were
10
Deandre and Kayla
went to the bathroom
for ten minutes
then
he came out
and
told me to
smell his finger...
when we were
11
every morning
Malik got on the bus
his eyes were red
and
his lips were blacker...
when we were
12
i saw Keon and Vanessa
walk past Chloe -
who
was staring at
her behind
not
his...
when we were
13
Alicia turned around
to talk to me
in homeroom
and
her breath smelled like
my mom's did
at my cousin's wedding...
we may not be adults
till we're
25
but
we get a lot of
practice.
© 2017 Marcus Harris
I Gave
I gave it
to Michael,
he imagined it
was someone else's...
I gave it
to Troy,
he didn't want it
once he got it...
I gave it
to Tremaine,
he locked it away
then forgot about it...
I gave it
to De'Andre,
he played with it
then got tired of it...
I gave it
to Alonzo,
he squeezed it dry
so no one else would want it...
I gave it
to Marshall,
he shattered it
then stepped over the pieces
on his way out...
I gave it
to myself,
after a while,
it stopped hiding.
© 2018 Marcus Harris