Jamila Woods Bio, Age, Career, Net Worth

Jamila woods poems

Beverly, huh.

you must be
made of money.
your parents
must have grown
on trees.
bet you’re black
tinged with green.
bet you sleep
on bags of it.
bet your barbies
climb it.
bet you never
wanted.
bet you never
had to ask.
bet you golf.
bet you tennis.
bet you got
a summer house.
bet you got
a credit card
for your 5th birthday.
bet you played
with bills for toys.
bet you chew
them up
for dinner.
bet you spit
your black out
like tobacco
that’s why you talk so
bet you listen to green day.
bet you ain’t never heard of al.
bet your daddy wears a robe
around the house.
bet his hands are soft as a frog’s belly.
bet your house is on a hill.
bet the grass is freshly cut.
bet you feel like a princess.
bet the police protect your house.
bet you know their first names.
bet your house has a hundred rooms.
bet a black lady comes to clean them.

Daddy Dozens

My Daddy’s forehead is so big, we don’t need a dining room
table. My Daddy’s forehead so big, his hat size is equator. So
big, it’s a five-head. Tyra Banks burst into tears when she seen
my Daddy’s forehead. My Daddy’s forehead got its own area code.
My Daddy baseball cap got stretch marks. My Daddy pillowcase
got craters. His eyebrows need GPS to find each other. My Daddy
forehead lives in two time zones. Planets confuse my Daddy forehead
for the sun. Couch cushions lose quarters in the wrinkles in my Daddy
forehead. My Daddy so smart, he fall asleep with the movie on and
wake up soon as the credits start to roll. My Daddy so smart, he
perform surgery on his own ingrown toenail. Momma was not
impressed, but my Daddy got brains. My Daddy know exactly
how to drive me to my friend’s house without lookin at no map.
My Daddy born here, he so smart, he know the highways like
the wrinkles in his forehead. He know the free clinics like the gray
hairs on his big ass head. My Daddy so smart, he wear a stethoscope
and a white coat. My Daddy drive to work in a minivan only slightly
bigger than his forehead, that’s just how my Daddy rolls. My Daddy
got swag. My Daddy dance to “Single Ladies” in the hallway.
My Daddy drink a small coffee cream and sugar. My Daddy
drink a whole can of Red Bull. My Daddy eat a whole pack
of sour Skittles and never had a cavity. My Daddy so smart,
he got a pullout couch in his office. Got a mini fridge there too.
Got a cell phone, and a pager, and a email address where I can leave
him messages when he’s not at home. My Daddy’s not home.
Momma saves a plate that turns cold.

But when my Daddy does come home, he got a office
in his bedroom too. Computer screen night light,
Momma says she can’t sleep right, but my Daddy
got work, my Daddy at work, at home, in the attic,
with the TV on, in the dark, from the front yard,
through the windows, you can see him working, glass
flickering, my house got its own forehead, glinting, sweaty,
in the evening, while my Daddy at work, at home,
in his own area code,

a whole other time zone.

Ghazal for White Hen Pantry

beverly be the only south side you don’t fit in
everybody in your neighborhood color of white hen

brown bag tupperware lunch don’t fill you
after school cross the street, count quarters with white friends

you love 25¢ zebra cakes mom would never let you eat
you learn to white lie through white teeth at white hen

oreos in your palm, perm in your hair
everyone’s irish in beverly, you just missin’ the white skin

pray they don’t notice your burnt toast, unwondered bread
you be the brownest egg ever born from the white hen

pantry in your chest where you stuff all the Black in
distract from the syllables in your name with a white grin

keep your consonants crisp, coffee milked, hands visible
never touch the holiday-painted windows of white hen

you made that mistake, scratched your initials in the paint
an unmarked crown victoria pulled up, full of white men

they grabbed your wrist & wouldn’t show you a badge
the manager clucked behind the counter, thick as a white hen

they told your friends to run home, but called the principal on you
& you learned Black sins cost much more than white ones

Jamila Woods Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjY4tjLh6ot/