Jameka Williams​

Plastic White Girl

White guys online want me savage,
draped in beads. Long black nipples,
nothing else.
 
:
 
Do not hold me to the light.
I have a lot of browning thorns.
 
:
 
Skinned & kinked.
Sally Hemings in leggings.
 
:
 
In Pinky, Pinky Johnson passes for White.
& still her skin - blue vein surface -
thin enough to witness the yellow in her.
 
:
 
Nina Simone’s skin was black & slick
with gin sweats. A furious drunk, she never
got a pair of blue eyes for Christmas.
 
:
 
Don’t leave me, my love.
Tangle your fingers here:
dark roots meets alabaster skull.
(deletes Tinder account)
 
:
 
I received a bar of Ivory soap &
a washcloth for Christmas one year.
A plastic white girl the next.
 
:
 
Gin is also white.
Simone’s teeth: white.
 
:
 
I’m drunk: the white walls vibrate
like mice.
 
:
 
Simone sang of four women: My name is Aunt Sarah!
Sarah’s skin: yellow, her father: rich-white, her black mother:
forced.
 
:
 
My Sarahs are foamy leaves rippling through a latte.
My Sarahs get DNA test for birthdays to see if they
have a little Wakanda in them, on their mama’s side.
 
:
 
Spoiler alert: Pinky puts the wrong skin back on.

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The Animal

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Jameka Williams is a MFA candidate at Northwestern University hailing from Chester, PA, fifteen miles southeast of Philadelphia. Her poetry has been published in Prelude Magazine, Gigantic Sequins, Powder Keg Magazine, Yemassee Journal, Tupelo Quarterly and is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly. Muzzle Magazine nominated her poem, 'Yeezus' Wife [when asked what do you actually do],' from their June 2017 issue for 'Best of the Net 2017' and the Pushcart Prize. She resides in Chicago, IL.