Nijla Baseema Mu'min

Daughters of the deluge
black mermaids face disaster
1.
Oil stains our blood
mothers
we are not clean,
our scales singe red
the chains are chemicals
they form rings
around our wrists,
we cry to the bones that gave us life
the bones disintegrate
the new ships are steel
the only bodies that drop-
our own
we swim in circles, singing ocean lullabies
blue
we cannot see the bones we once guarded
our prayers are pleas,
a protest for the fish that drown into our hands,
like the ancestors that birthed us
2.
We sing saline
prayers
with locs of sea weed
and kiss the bones of babies
once dropped
kiss the bones of black men
and women who jumped overboard,
screaming us into the waters-
sea creatures,
surviving unlike them
they flailed
and fought
all the way
down
until schools of angelfish
welcomed them
to the kingdom
flailed and fought until currents
ripped the chains
from their ankles and wrists
fought until their lungs
lost air and Hausa language-
we were born
with strong tails and scales
of brown chestnut hue
swimming the same current
as the ships that sheared the bodies
of breath