Black joy

Black joy Joy is the will Is the dimple that has endured A dance so deep in a dark cheek A wound without a scar Without a trace The humour of hurt Is the hell of being healed Joy daps death Lives in the grin Singing from the blood Bathes in a smirk Testifies tenderness in a tear It is a smile silhouetted against the face witnessing the want The flower in the grenade A rose in the concrete A pirouette bеside a barricade Is the buttеrfly in the battlefield Is disarming The swing set in the middle of a gunfight Is dodging a bullet Hopscotch and double dutch A fierce gaze, the side eye, the shade The sass, the snap, the head nod Is the turn up, the swag Joy is righteous and ratchet Joy twerks and taps, jooks and jives harlem shakes, electric slides Dutty wines salsas on twos and rumbas Joy is rhythm and repetition Rhythm and repetition Hums in harmony Is the blues Is a song in a cotton field Or central bookings On a crowded subway Joy is a song anywhere Joy bes in the trap Is a dilla beat in the middle east Is fly Is finger-licking good Is pasteles with black beans Or a patty and coco bread Is fried chicken With bbq sauce Or buffalo sauce Or hot sauce Or any damn sauce Joy Is a recipe passed on A language that survives Savoury and sweet Toe curling Knocking boots The fight and the fury Is making love to make up Is the glow Is an entire day in a lover's arms A carton of ice cream and a bed of books Is illuminated in the aftermath Is wrinkled lips, a pouted kiss, the shivering hips The theater of our thunder Joy Joy is a story traveling A rocking chair on the front lawn A wind chime in a window Is a barbeque in the backyard Subwoofers in a hoopty Melanin gathered in a room Is the entourage Is getting your friends in the club Joy Joy is all about vibes Is a roof over your head Is clothes on your back Is free 99 Is having the rent when its due Or having no rent at all Is no debt or no credit check Joy is shooting dice in a stairway It's getting a hand in spades Or a double six capicu in dominoes Is hoops in a crate Is opening a fire hydrant in the heat Joy Is a six-block willy through traffic with no handlebars in the rain Is the catwalk Is the voguing Is the coming out Is the crackhead with a dime bag and a dream Is a fresh pair of white kicks with the check Is bottle caps glued beneath dress shoes Is three dollars in the tank Is catching rain water in a tin cup A firefly in your palm Buying sunflowers for yourself on a cloudy day Is a moon in the sky as if in a school play Is your father in the audience Joy is skipping school or recess Is a screen without static aluminium foil antenna Is when the belt buckle snaps or the switch breaks Or your mom gets too damn tired joy Is waving down the ice cream truck A fresh line up and a clean doobie The perfect coil to a curl or a loosened nap And an afro pick is the gift of gab Is rapping yo ass off Is roasting or wrestling a sibling to tap out Joy Is yo mama jokes until it's yo mama Is the first foot out the jail, the homecoming, the graduation The step show at the probate Joy, joy, joy Is hugging the self, what conquers the heart and captures the blame Is the madness of our meaning Is the maturity of our memory Is the irony of our forgetting Is a helicopter four days after the hurricane On a roof with no water or food Is a mother picking her daughter up from foster care Is smoking a joint and a cop car switching lanes Is food stamps on the first of the month Is no snitching No snitching (no snitching) Is loyalty, perseverance, protest, resilience, resistance Is the food after the funeral or the parade The blessing and the curse The call, the response The prayer, the pulpit Is evidence of things unseen Is the hallelujah, the amen, the holy ghost Is speaking in tongues Is when the santo say you don't need no cleaning Is genetic heirloom Is the portable promised land It is the diaspora, it is the diaspora, it is the diaspora Making it overseas or making it over the mason-dixon line Joy Joy is family Is brotherhood Is sisterhood Is feeling another's dimple in your face Is together Joy is together It's together unified on the frontlines Our joy Our joy will astonish the world Because joy True joy Has always been And will always be Justice