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Royalty Revisited
By Ayisha
Knight King Tut starved
himself when
I told him he was
too old to
suckle my regal
breasts
and the sphinx
remained
riddled with
silence when he
couldn’t figure
out how
locks pinned
beneath
gemmed tiaras don’t
define me as a
queen.
See, the jewel cup
between my thighs
has been pouring
silk threads for centuries
decorating my
remarkable divinity.
The enigma of my
power left
ancient gods
breathless
rendering them
frozen in worthless statues.
Millenniums can’t
count
how many mortals
have kissed the
ground I walk on
just to taste a
grain of diluted heaven.
I stay adorned with
pride and inspiration
draped in
scriptures and
baptized with the
words of
Nikki Giovanni and
Alice Walker.
While history books
thought they could pacify me with
paragraphs on
Martin, Malcolm and Nelson,
my mother and I
used the Earth’s axis to excavate core
minerals and write
the life stories of
Coretta, Betty and
Winnie.
Glancing at the
star maps tattooed on my collarbone,
I took Zeus off my
mountainous shoulders,
and let him rest in
the grand canyon of
my cleavage until
he fell asleep,
passed the time by
making
thunderbolt rattles
out of Nefertiti’s bones,
used my wisdom
teeth to
paint stars in the
Delta Quadrant,
and my unedited
poetry became gospel.
I was sculpted from
the Navajo’s blessing
to walk in beauty
and here
I stand at the
crossroads
of those who walked
before
and now with me.
I remember when
Harriet Tubman used to wade in the Nile
and Angela Davis’
fro was just a nap of Sojourner’s truth.
Each woman is my
stepping stone
but together, they
make up the mosaic
lining my atlantic
ocean pool,
weathering monsoon
tidal waves
in a testimony to
women’s strength.
My flawless skin
baked brown by
a cowering sun
requires no masking
foundation, makeup or diluted perfume
cuz I’ve got Ida
B Wells speeches hanging onto my ears.
Orion’s stars
illuminating my hips,
and Saturn’s
rings around my toes.
Intoxicated by my
ability to fill
black holes with
misbegotten history,
I fed King Tut and
told the Sphinx
He could now share my story.
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