“Why Don’t You Parent a Little?”

The story is that there is so much loss,
 

so much waste in a woman who does not make
 

a body with her body. Such sunk potential
 

in a sex that does not produce.
 

The story is that we have progressed.
 

The story is that the black woman is safe.
 

The story is that the black woman is safe
 

if she protects her king.
 

The king is dead.

Copyright © 2021 by Maya Marshall. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 22, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.