for sky-soft brown boys
“I know a boy who is sky-soft brown.” —Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
.
sky-soft brown boys don’t melt
into seasons, they stutter into them.
shoes scuffing summer
as they trip backwards into fall.
like leaves, they change color:
first black then purple then blue.
a bruise growing on the pavement
they float above. here, black boys
are angels holied by a brown sky.
watch them stare through you
with their gaping, pothole eyes.
on new year’s: boys, sky-soft
& brown, watch fireworks
wound the air like a bullet.
they crush ice below their feet
& call it dancing, call it music.
we pretend we’re not staring
but we are & they notice.
they snowball down the sidewalk,
shave winter to ash.
wake up in the morning,
sweating a pool of snowflakes.
in spring, black skin peels
off of bone & falls around us
like rain. we strip naked
& stick our tongues out.
nothing is as sweet as a boy that blooms.
nothing will ever be this holy.
press your hands together in prayer
& thank them for this.
sleep now in their afro garden
tomorrow, we’ll untangle ourselves
from a black boy on our way out.
don’t call them missing.
they are still here slicing
oranges into smiles.
tangy & spilling with pulp,
the boys drift on popsicle stick wings
into their sticky, brown sky.
don’t be afraid when the sun reaches
down into them & licks their bones
clean of darkness. their shoelaces
stringing through the clouds.
this time, they do not fall.
Elyse Thomas is a 17-year-old, second-generation Puerto Rican and Jamaican writer from Miami, FL. She has been recognized by The Poetry Society, Alliance for Young Writers, the Poetry Society of Virginia, It’s All Write, the National English Honor Society, and Just Poetry. Her work is published or forthcoming in Foyle Young Poets, The Poetry Society of Virginia, The Bridge Bluffton University Literary Journal, Polyphony Lit, Gyroscope Review, Alexandria Quarterly, and more.
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