for Dajerria Becton &
Sandra Bland &
Chikesia Clemons &
in this part the girl is without head.
I draw her bone-jut and sweet-
an extravagant lump referencing what isn’t present.
it’s been said before that if I don’t
say a thing, but imply it, you will think it.
perhaps a headless girl can be imagined humanely.
perhaps this girl will be treated as if she were
headed. draw her formless as if to say
imagine form here.
gonna make me a girl
you can’t arm sling and knee press. gonna make me
a girl with all her broken showing ‘top the skin,
a siren of infant wails to prove her girlhood.
gonna color her in with what
it takes to make a girl just a girl,
perhaps not the crime it is to be too specific:
other. gonna make me a girl you can’t knee press,
officer. make her of ground she’s already down on.
you can’t tell her “get down” further if she is
ground itself. gonna make her the kind of nothing
you can still imagine as your daughter. not too dark,
not so un-girled by her something-ness
that she can’t be nothing enough
for you
to be soft with.
Renia White is a poet from the east coast. She earned her BA from Howard University and her MFA from Cornell University. She's taught writing of different forms and has received awards from the Hurston/Wright Foundation and Sonora Review and has been a finalist for the a 1/2 K Prize, Mary C. Mohr Award, the Pocataligo Prize, and other honors. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Offing, Prelude, Tahoma Literary Review, Slice, Ruminate, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City. 
