My skin is battle armor,        
carried by my father down Kansas streets
while eyes became braided leather roots,
passing down his father’s scars.

Their backs are cave walls -
welted, purple portraits,
illustrating stories too hard to speak.

Their backs are the unyielding black earth, rooted with
cotton and wars they supported
on their shoulders.

Their backs hold up the sky like Atlas.
Their backs are beaten.
Their backs are bloody.
Their backs are breaking.

Bodies too frail to disobey,
but a will too strong to surrender

I never knew my grandfather,
but I see him in my father’s eyes
when the white officer from his hometown
looks down on him
and calls him boy.

I see him in my father’s whiskey-scented memories
of nights his brother came home,
busted lip and bruised ribs
after drinking from the wrong fountain

I see him in water.
The way it’s dried up and swallowed
but always finds its way back to the river.

I see him in my skin.