Poetry
Hot corn crackles in the oiled pot
As thug clots tie knots in my stomach
The TV in Granny’s room never stops
Background noise of politics and hot goss
MSNBC is its latest beat
Another Black boys defeat
Caught on the 911 call
The dash cam
The revolution won’t be televised
But the deaths can
Another stepping into my white school
With my white friends
Girls with gel tips and spray tans
Pretending they know blood thoughts
Kendrick blasting in the Jeep
Paid for with generational green
Generations of being looked at funny
For the helmet of hair
Protection from summer heat
Low porosity, black soap foam
Straightened. Braided. Permed.
Each burning pop of the hot comb
Now a symbol of pride
Stars and symbols etched into scalps
Baby hairs laid like curly vines
Designs that popped off
Black heads to hair ill-equipped
For the tug of burdens
Or the pop of whips
So you change cornrows
To “boxer braids”
And say you did it first
And mumble in disgust
At our outbursts
It’s hard not to exhale n-words
When the phonetics of Trayvon weren’t taught in classes
Or how the lashes became tattoos
How Compton isn’t the only hood
That produces children with dark hues
Rhiann Sheffie is not just a poet but a true renaissance woman. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she is a singer, songwriter, artist, and, to her family, comedian. She is currently a second-year student at California State University, Long Beach. She is an alumni of WriteGirl, and has read poetry at the 2024 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books event at the University of Southern California and the 2023 Love Amplified Poetry Jam at the Los Angeles Music Center. She has also received honorable mention for Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate in 2022 and 2023. Her poem “pop, pop, pop” appears in Exposition Review’s 2024 issue.