Ode to a Killer Whale

Ode to a Killer Whale

from the perspective of Kunta Kinte

Black boy, with a name
and a plight like that
you may as well claim

African. No matter
your mama squeezed
you into the black waters

of Iceland where you learned
to hunt from top rung,
spanning a cool

hundred miles on a day’s
breath with NUFF
time to frolic in the sun

light shining down on the deep
sea diver’s sole delight--
some white boy locker.

Brother had I known
they were coming for you
next I would of sent

congo cries straight
through your orca heart
to up jump the boogie

before lasso logic
and nigger nets. Alas, it’s
the same passage that borned

we to this troubled land;
and the same white
devil captivated us

both into ticking time
bombs swimming circles
inside their squares.

Oh how they love
you to their greatest capacity--
which is to say, shutting you

up in a bathtub, training
your charm into dollars you make
rain for them, as they flip

you over to milk
your sperm from the cash
cow you is--quelling

all rebellion with rubs
and rewards. Only for
your seeds to grow

apart from you. Alas,
they captured your body
but can’t contain the joy

of your rage. Alas, you signify
half the name they gave
you killer--cause bruh,

you ain’t no whale. But a more
menacing dolphin. Shamu, Rambo,
Sambo of sea, I mean to say,

and Nat means to say
(we spoke the other day),
and sister Harriet too--boy

you got some dead folk praying
for you. Done seduced
your captors with your kind nets.

May your rage accomplish
the rest--seep to that tooth of silence
in us each that no rain can touch.

May you do what we all tried--
in our ways--to do, which is
to say: like the bullet that burns

with a president’s name, boy save
your masterpiece for the stage.
I mean to say: killer whale killer

whale--grip this bitch by its tail and drag
the whole thing down, down,
down, down, down.



© Samantha Thornhill

--Published in Cimarron Review.

Frogs and Bees

Frogs and Bees


When I see a jar of tomato sauce, I smell Mummy’s garden
where we trapped
bees in our glass canisters with holes punched into the lids
so they wouldn’t
suffocate like us in the house that summer we behaved
like imps in church
so Mummy made us do jigsaw puzzles of oars and penguins.
So we ambushed
the bees, armed with our glass rotundas, faces ripped off,
hollows drained
of pulpy tomato innards now oozing from the garbage bag
in the kitchen
where Mummy churned the mango ice-cream Port of Spain
craved like crack
rock. Oh how we wished to entrap the fireflies romancing
night
with their candlelight torsos—fat chance, especially after
that day,
after the sharp exclamation of our natural names cut
through us
like a discordant cow-bell, after we tried to re-enter back
door incognito
even though she awaited us at its threshold like Charon
at the lip of death,
brandishing the wounded trash bag dripping tomato pain
onto linoleum.
Tell me you wouldn’t rather be blinded by a frog too, than
to see the look
on my mother’s face that day. Because it’s been said that
the frogs in Trinidad
can forever blind you with their flying venom, and I am still
afraid of frogs.



© Samantha Thornhill

Published in Louisville Review

Jezebel's Song

Jezebel’s Song


Thigh grinding sashay
& judgment crunching
like flies under Saturday
night heels

Jezebel always wore the same
pantyhose to mass—the jet black ones
with control top & run
longer than Euphrates

No wife’s perfume matched her
menstrual musk

Jello bottom jiggle
under Sunday dress

Altar boys hid
hard ons in folds of robes;
Mummy turned
my face into her paisley hip

Jezebel winked
at men with her left eye
their wives with her right
then kissed their babies
eyes shut songs
lips cool ocean floors
secrets sleeping on her
taste buds like peppermints

How yuh letters, gyul she asked
me once under Mummy’s
heating lamp glare

I said fine

Once she stuck out
her tongue at Father who slipped
Jesus’s body gingerly into her mouth

Everyone listened
for the Eucharist’s dissolve

The organ even stopped

Rumor had it she transformed
a broomstick into a microphone
at that place

Every Sunday I waited
for her eruption into a smoky song

But she didn’t even sing
Our Father just hummed
& swayed, hummed
& swayed

Even her bee
language was beautiful
the women who lived inside Uncle’s black box
jazz singers
their voices curving roads

Whenever she didn’t balance
in on sun rays Sundays
weren’t quite as candid

Maybe it was the erections or her
romantic imperfections—
river snaking down her leg
pigeon toed stroll
bleeding dancing shoes
thick custard grin

Maybe it was the altar
boys who longed to taste
February on her breath
or the wives with eyes
that could sharpen pencils

Maybe it was me and my friends
who reached home and dusted
off our mother’s high heels
licking red pistachio shells
just for the lipstick

She never sang the Our Father
just hummed & swayed
hummed & swayed

I always wondered
what song she lodged there

Deep wind caught
in the throat of a valley


© Samantha Thornhill

Published in the Louisville Review

House of the Rising Daughter

House of the Rising Daughter


Give thanks to your mansion
of a mama in that cold square room

the push and pull of breath
that brought you round the bend

On the shores of our regret
we celebrate you angel—

the future needs you
to star in its story

Your face a rising sun clotted
with beauty’s blood—your first
glass ceiling so perfectly shattered

Watch how you pounce the horizon—
closed eyes blind with light

ever shining

Head first
into a temple of gloves
hair wet and tangled with
the fury of your coming

Welcome angel
to this crash landing life

Your battle cry joins the symphony


© Samantha Thornhill

Published in Hedgebrook's newsletter

This Camel's Back

This Camel's Back



On the murder of Sean Bell

I.
Unconcerned with the needle
in the haystack, and the pot
at the ass end of rainbows.

No crusade for the magic
stick, or godmother's wand.

Today we ponder the proverbial
straw.

We have been journeying
this desert for days.

Sandstorms to skin
cousin water
singing from livid hoses;

in the distance, cacti
echo arrested men.

By day we are candles
burning at both ends;
at night we shiver like astronauts
in our measley tents.

This Everest on legs, this
beast that schleps us all
requires more water than we
have to give it, but somehow
we make do.

Somehow it does too;
hefts us across
time's unforgiving sands.


II.
If more boulevards named after dead men;
if nooses resurrecting
from the shallow graves of history;
if black gold proving yet again
its invisibility
to the scales of justice;
if the reality of being life's lover
but never the world's friend;
if sunken city or evolution
toward bulletproof skin
isn't straw enough--then

it fears me to think
of what it will take
to break
this camels' back
at last.



© Samantha Thornhill

Published in Proud Flesh.

Red Dust

Red Dust


cleaning day Friday
cleaning day Friday and vacuum
cleaning day Friday and vacuum bag plump
red Sahara dust blown Sahara dust blown clear
across the Atlantic Africa wafting in our windows
silt ghosts settling on our couches our shoulders table tops
silt ghosts like flurries in our tracheas our lungs bags
plump with red Sahara dust blown clear across
the Atlantic the blue wet grave of the dead
Mummy’s ancient broom choked with
the sweet hair of the dead



© Samantha Thornhill

Published in Rhapsodia