Mutiny
is just a fancy word white officers
use when they bark
roll over, nigger! or sit up and beg, boy!
—and we don't.
They been the master them whole lives
and believe Obey! come natural
to colored men.
But some of us was already free.
Some of us could already write
our own name.
And some of us just have a hard time
being talked down at like dirt
under somebody's polished boot.
Mose colored men done mutinied
in our minds and in our hearts
so many times since we joined
this great unshackling
it's a wonder our dress blues ain't dark gray.
We sleep with death every night
knowing Johnny Reb gone kill us
if they catch us in these colors
whether we lay down our arms or not.
Rolling our eyes, sucking our teeth,
and not biting our tongues
is just fleas on a rabid dog,
not the giant head foaming at the mouth
and certainly not the fangs.
Copyright Credit: Frank X. Walker, "Mutiny" from from LOAD IN NINE TIMES: POEMS by Frank X. Walker. Copyright © 2024 by Frank X. Walker. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing
Corporation.
Corporation.
Source: LOAD IN NINE TIMES: POEMS (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2024)