Return to Issue 10

Black is not Enough

Black 

is not enough

to go by

is too narrow a

space

too clumsy a way

to reveal 

you

Don’t you see

your place 

up high

along the winding trail

of lights 

resting on 

Mother’s 

neck?

Can you name

all the shapes 

of your

intelligence,

that sometimes, 

when it feels like,

splashes over the brim

of infinity 

to condense as jazz

a dance of colors

at 5Pointz

Denzel’s deep sea eyes

and our snaking hips

to the dancehall riddim’s

dip

dip dip

dip

dip dip

dip—

Unleash your

ecstatic laughter 

for this joyous walk

through time

and mirrors 

where you can love

you as

us,

as all of this

salt foam under a lavender 

sun 

the jubilant tail 

of your familiar

a warm kiss of wind  

in a glade 

exploding with new life

that sweet sacrifice

of guiding 

the next navigator 

of your blood

Black is not enough 

is too dim an idea

too minuscule 

a name

for

us 

Keisha-Gaye Anderson

16

You held crack?

“The most I ever held was a gun”

16 and old

just 16 years ago

you opened your eyes

But they called you

invisible eyesore

say you are

too loud

too full of life

too bright

for this city of cadavers

They want you to

draw in

like a spring

and bolt the door

shout your big mouth

But that potential rumbles

flexes in bravado

squeaks in ennui

gets taut at the thought of

a fight

and is ready

to catapult you

anywhere you want

But do you know

where to aim?

Will you split

in mid-air?

Will you crash?

into prison bars,

unyielding nozzles,

beds with hyenas,

the asylum?

16 and so much

potential

you need a safe place to

burst

mamma arms to catch

your confetti laughter

guide you from girl

to woman

show you where to find

your mirror

and your wings

Keisha-Gaye Anderson

Keisha-Gaye Anderson is a Jamaican-born poet, writer, visual artist, and media professional based in Brooklyn, NY. Her debut poetry collection Gathering the Waters (Jamii Publishing 2014) was accepted into the Poets House Library and the National Library of Jamaica. Her poetry collection Everything Is Necessary was published by Willow Books in 2019. Another collection, A Spell for Living, received the Editors’ Choice recognition for the Numinous Orisons, Luminous Origin Literary Award, and is forthcoming from Agape Editions as a multimedia e-book, including music and Keisha’s original artwork in 2020. Keisha’s poetry, fiction, and essays have been widely published in national literary journals, magazines, and anthologies that include Kweli Literary Journal, Small Axe Salon, Interviewing the Caribbean, Renaissance Noire, The Caribbean Writer, The Killens Review of Arts and Letters, Mosaic Literary Magazine, African Voices Magazine, Streetnotes: Cross Cultural Poetics, Caribbean in Transit Arts Journal, The Mom Egg Review, and others. Her visual art has been featured in exhibitions in the tristate area and in such literary journals as The Adirondack Review, Joint Literary Magazine, and No, Dear magazine. 

Connection to SEQ: I grew up in Southeast, Queens--Rosedale specifically--during the '80s and 90s, after my family emigrated from Jamaica to the United States. My neighborhood was a mix of recent Caribbean immigrants, and mostly Irish- and Italian-Americans. I spent many happy childhood days playing on the block with my friends and doing all the things that kids do in suburbia. I was also, however, keenly aware that we represented the shifting demographics of the area and that change wasn't welcome by all. Bill Moyers' news program "Rosedale: The Way It Is" (1976) gives a good overview of the racial tensions in the neighborhood during my childhood. Ironically, I would later work for Bill Moyers during my years as a TV journalist. Southeast Queens was an interesting place at that time. We were coming of age during the birth of Hip Hop and in the wake of the Black Power movement. I feel it was an pivotal moment for black cultural production, as the culmination of a certain type of self-determination permeated the arts and became the bedrock of an aspect of black cultural expression that the world is most familiar today--from music to films to art and poetry. The zeitgeist gave rise to A Tribe Called Quest, Run-D.M.C., and others, and we were living through those new, provocative, and rebellious forms of self expression. Break dancing broke the rules of what was considered dance. And style trends like goal chains and expensive sneakers reflected some the decadence of the Reagan years. I remember feeling free to explore my neighborhood, aware of danger, but never crippled by it. We had, I feel, the best environment to explore childhood. What a great time to be a child, in Southeast Queens.