Lolita Steward-White
Dem Dark Bones
African Americans are three times as likely to become infected
with COVID-19 as their white neighbors, and twice as likely to die.
- The New York Times, 2020
America craves the taste of dark meat.
She licks glimmers of salt from burdened shoulders.
Niggas shoulder the burden of Corona.
Niggas dying early ain’t nothing new.
New word for dying is essential worker.
Essential is the sound of niggas’ crushed bones.
America sucks our marrow bone dry.
America picks snowy teeth with dark bones.
Dem dark bones Ezekiel prophesized:
Rising up in the valley, dem dark bones.
Dem dark bones that helped build white America.
Why aren’t dark bones considered American?
America considers dark bones her feast.
America craves the taste of dark meat.
Lolita Stewart-White is a poet, filmmaker and educator who lives and works in Miami. Her poems have appeared in Green Mountains Review, Iowa Review, Callaloo, Rattle and Beloit Poetry Journal. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo’s Writers Workshop, South Florida Cultural Consortium and Sundance Screenwriters Lab. She is a Pushcart Award nominee and the winner of the Paris-American Poetry Prize. Her films have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Moca) in Miami, Pan African-American Film and Arts Festival at the Magic Johnson Theater in Los Angeles and the Seattle Langston Hughes Film Festival.
