I Turn the Volume Down Because Beyoncé Says Fuck in the Car
While I Drive My Daughter to School
by William Evans
the four-year-old gives her first
protest of the morning whether intentional
or the default position of her mother's resolve
her fist is balled in the way a boy would grip her hair
in a kindergarten class or at any age that boys
put their names on things
she says, hey I like that song and Beyoncé has already finished
saying I'm gonna fuck me up a bitch so
I turn the volume back up to five seconds ago
before a father once told a Black woman she was too loud to
fill his daughter's lungs before the tabernacle
of mist filled the car until all we knew to breathe was
gunsmoke and the ire of men interrupting the choir of crows
that ain't meant for their ears and I know
it doesn't take much to get this little girl's blood
into a spell because it was once her grandmother's
blood which means there will be
a day when someone some man tries to pull it
out of her and she becomes a wound where the curses her
father hid from her come tumbling out of the
same
tomb where she once buried a woman with a too quiet face
protest of the morning whether intentional
or the default position of her mother's resolve
her fist is balled in the way a boy would grip her hair
in a kindergarten class or at any age that boys
put their names on things
she says, hey I like that song and Beyoncé has already finished
saying I'm gonna fuck me up a bitch so
I turn the volume back up to five seconds ago
before a father once told a Black woman she was too loud to
fill his daughter's lungs before the tabernacle
of mist filled the car until all we knew to breathe was
gunsmoke and the ire of men interrupting the choir of crows
that ain't meant for their ears and I know
it doesn't take much to get this little girl's blood
into a spell because it was once her grandmother's
blood which means there will be
a day when someone some man tries to pull it
out of her and she becomes a wound where the curses her
father hid from her come tumbling out of the
same
tomb where she once buried a woman with a too quiet face
William Evans is a writer from Columbus, OH and the founder of the Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam (September 2008). In addition to being the Editor-in-Chief of Blacknerdproblems.com, William has published two collections of poetry on Penmanship Books. He has been published or has poems forthcoming in joint literary journal, Winter Tangerine, Radius, Union Station Magazine, Freezeray Poetry, and other online publications.
