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In April's Ujima WIRE, poet and documentarian Jard Lerebours speaks to lovers and family while stuck in the belly of the beast and from within the cogs of the machine.
I love you
So I will give you what is left of me
After working this 12 hour shift
–nothing left but tip-out, aching muscles and disdain
I love you
So allow me to give you what is left of me
After serving the Black bourgeoisie
Saltfish, plantains, and oxtail
From home, like Two Mommy would cook
I love you
So let me lavish you with this sewing machine
Make us clothes to wear in a future where I don’t have to put on
This poorly ironed white button down and these masculine jeans
I love you
Will you make space for the red to spill out of my mouth –
The beginnings of a class consciousness,
Red gashes strewn across my ghastly fingers
Calluses forming on poet hands
When we escape this nightmare
I will be pretty, wearing my mother’s red satin shirt
And your bleached hair will shine under the Atlanta sun
I loved you
But how will the underclass
Hold one another and survive
Among these ruins of empire
I kiss you soft
All is not lost yet.
Jard Lerebours (He/They) is a Jamaican-Haitian anti-disciplinary storyteller from Long Island, NY. They approach art-making as a conversation between friends and family in communion. He deeply cares about this communal approach by way of a West Indian upbringing in a loving village of cousins, aunts, uncles, great uncles, grandparents and great grandparents. The goal of their work is to capture the nuance, joy and responsibility that comes with living, breathing, Black being.