Keisha-Gaye Anderson

War

A war can be quiet
like, “Hey...try these pills. We
can skip gym class” or

Casting:
Sassy Black Friend
Prostitute
Thug No. 3

A war disappears
those who prey
in cathedrals
or survive in the
bullseye of its
permanent theater

75,000
missing
black
girls

gone quietly
no one sees
because no one ever saw
“Did that really happen?”
“I don’t see race...”

A war sprouts
pyres of glass
and steel
around you
calls it revitalization
incinerates
the frame house
of your honest work
and the one safe place
for your children to exist
as themselves

A war assures you
that you think too much
that you are paranoid
hands you any version of
Jesus
that will shut you the fuck up
while the priests all know
that the allegories
are much more
than a bedtime story
are absolutely a map
in, up, and out
that you’ll never
figure out

A war is raw
putrid
rotting life
that looks like
maltodextrin
arsenic
petroleum
all the not-food
you have the constitutional right
to choose

A war be writ
in your birth certificate

Are you legal?

We can never
be sure
about these shores
we stumble onto
blind and fragile
pulled through
waters by unanswered
questions
just to find community
in the shape of
shattered glass
and mass amnesia
like a fog
under a new moon

But, since when is a warrior
afraid of war?

We keep coming
because the war
sounds like
an abeng
waking us up
to teach

We cannot die
we are the I am
that always
be
and a war
is a blip
on the timeline
of the galaxy

--
Keisha-Gaye Anderson is a Jamaican-born poet, writer, visual artist, and media professional based in Brooklyn, NY. Her debut poetry collection Gathering the Waters (Jamii Publishing 2014) was accepted into the Poets House Library and the National Library of Jamaica. Her poetry collection Everything Is Necessary was published by Willow Books in 2019. Another collection, A Spell for Living, received the Editors’ Choice recognition for the Numinous Orisons, Luminous Origin Literary Award, and is forthcoming from Agape Editions as a multimedia e-book, including music and Keisha’s original artwork in 2020. Keisha’s poetry, fiction, and essays have been widely published in national literary journals, magazines, and anthologies that include Kweli Literary Journal, Small Axe Salon, Interviewing the Caribbean, Renaissance Noire, The Caribbean Writer, The Killens Review of Arts and Letters, Mosaic Literary Magazine, African Voices Magazine, Streetnotes: Cross Cultural Poetics, Caribbean in Transit Arts Journal, The Mom Egg Review, and others. Keisha is a past participant of the VONA Voices and Callaloo writing workshops, a former fellow of the North Country Institute for Writers of Color, and was short-listed for the Small Axe Literary Competition. In 2018, Keisha was selected as a Brooklyn Public Library Artist in Residence. Her visual art has been featured in exhibitions in the tristate area and in such literary journals as The Adirondack Review, Joint Literary Magazine, and No, Dear magazine. Keisha began her career as a journalist, having written for national consumer magazines like Psychology Today, Teen People, Black Enterprise, and Honey, and working as a producer or associate producer on documentary programming for networks like CBS, PBS, and NHK (Japanese television). She currently works as a communications director for a large public college in New York City. Keisha regularly teaches English courses across The City University of New York, and also leads writing workshops for non-profits and other organizations. She is a graduate of the Syracuse University Newhouse School and College of Arts and Sciences, and holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from The City College, CUNY