Birmingham
Mama said the bomb wasn’t meant for me.
I think it was meant for Pastor Martin because he be havin’ them dreams.
Maybe those white men didn’t know that little black girls - we be goin’ to church too,
And we be foldin’ our hands, praying and taking communion just like their daughters.
Maybe if I wore my church shoes the bad men would’ve never came for me.
I knew they matched my dress but they always just be hurtin’ my feet.
I be thinkin’, did God christen the bombs that exploded my flesh into sacrifice?
And do anybody be hearin’ those sacrificial scriptures spoken in tongues claiming Christ before everything went boom?
Before the smoke and the rubble baptized these collapsing bones?
Maybe if they knew that we were like the most beautiful flowers right before the wind and the dirt began playing tug of war with the delicates of our petals.
Mama said it only took one man to die for the sins of this entire world,
So how did that man let this church tremble on my soul?
And I don’t remember there being enough holy water to stop the smoke or to calm the burning.
I remember bones crushed too fine to ever be recycled into anything more than no more.
Mama says some heartbreaks just be too hard to swallow at communion,
That some serpents just be finding salvation in baptismal pools,
That some church mice just be screaming America’s dirty little secrets,
That some deaths just be too black and too white to be labeled holy,
That some sacrifice comes without permission,
That some sacrifice just comes without fear, warning,
That God can’t always protect you from the boogie man, so some baby girls will reach the pearly gates and she - she won’t be tall enough to turn the handle.
Mama says that some men… some men will just be too guilty to claim innocence with Christ.
But what did… what did I do?
I never wanted to play with the white girls.
I - I never asked for integration; all I wanted was a pair of roller skates - maybe an extra piece of cake at dinner time.
Sometimes I just be thinking like… like maybe God was too busy trying to protecting Martin to think about me!
I ain’t never asked for his dream!
But Mama… Mama be sayin’ that his dream just been… just been askin’ for me.