Spine
Tough bone and flexible cartilage
Thick and strong
Dependable and uplifting
The spine, while hidden behind pounds of connected sinew and skin
It is the true strength within the greater body
The strains of the masses are dependent on its virtue
But like a polar bear of political narrative
When the spine is thought of as white, masculine, material, inflexible
It is black, porous, feminine,
flexing like bamboo, bending
In any direction to support those pounds of sinew and skin
Hidden, like fences and black faces
She must grip and hold what slips between fingertips
A son from mortality
A nation losing its morality
A veritable atlas, expected to turn on her axis at a moments notice
To keep the heads of others afloat
The role of black cervix is to bear
Her ache is inconsequential
Because when no one else wants to stand
The spine gathers her strength,
Rising too fast to go by vertebrae
Ignoring the weight of expectations
Screaming libations of her own tears
And sacrificing of her own form
Cracking but never collapsing
Structural integrity
Cannot be spelled without grit
Graceful in her incredulity
Of a body so based in pools of her effort but pretending to stand on mountaintops looking down it's crooked nose at her
Wondering why water can't climb up mountainsides
But like stone, she is strong as bone
And bears the weight of expectations
And so often, she does it alone
