MORGAN PARKER: Song of the Carefree Black Girl

from The Decision To Karaoke by 90s Meg Ryan

	/

lyrics

–– Song of the Carefree Black Girl ––

You bury our pleasure. The real
of it. Why we always gotta be on
some in-spite-of shit? My concern:
did I remember to record Scandal.
Did I choose the right bottle
of champagne. My hugged-up
hips. My gold lipstick. My headwrap.
My pain I owned and loved until
it had to go. My kale and chorizo
hash brunch. My kelly-green toes.
My literary tote bag. My man.
Giving it to me and serving me
seltzer in a martini glass. My
salaried gig. My side hustle.
Sometimes I remember my heart
beat is a djembe. My bookshelf
is full of us. I don't want to give you
the satisfaction but we love our hair.
My body: okay I know. My body
is complicated. Historically
it belongs to you. But actually, stop.
I’m trying to text my mom.
So what I mean is I’m just
listening to Roy Ayers waiting
for the eclipse.

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MORGAN PARKER's first book, Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, was selected by Eileen Myles for The 2013 Gatewood Prize and is forthcoming from Switchback Books. Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Tin House, jubilat, and Forklift, Ohio. A Cave Canem fellow, graduate of NYU’s Creative Writing MFA program, and poetry editor for Coconut Magazine, Morgan lives in Brooklyn.

More: www.morgan-parker.com.