EVERYBODY SPEAKS

Dada said God 

called on the Friday 

night before 

I was born 

four lbs bloody, 

an angry 

premature 

thing, the doctors said,

who was months

too small 

to breastfeed.

My birthmother

was spared

the latching of

a child she

planned 

to give up, and 

the social worker 

was hatin’. 

Saying how white

folk are always

tryna be saviors,

predicting 

how the Black kids

would never 

accept me, a new

-born hooked

up to tangled

tubes and machines.

But mom said 

she’d seen heaven 

in me. How I looked

more like

an Angelica

than a Madeline 

cuz Madeline

sounded like 

a white girl name,

and my birth

-mother agreed