What the ocean said to the black boy

You know how to swim, boy?
I know you can float;
felt you bobbing along my surface
before you even knew you could.
They say you just a conflagration
of bad intentions, boy.
Use me to put you out.
Don't want you burning this place down

again.

They see
a little too much L’Ouverture in you,
a little too much Turner,
a little too much of what they already had enough of.

What you see when you look at me?
You know how many of y'all I swallowed?
You just a drop of ink
on this canvas,

boy.

They call me blue because
they don't understand how the sky work.
They call you black because
they don't understand how God work.

But today
I'm still blue,
you still black.