Poems by Shnayjaah Valentine Jeanty

(Excerpt from her upcoming collection HOLLOWED BY HELP, releasing April 2027 with Write Bloody Publishing)

Especially 

hospitals are a scam, according to daddy, 

‘cause dying here is cheaper than asking 

for help, but his blood pressure might lower 

if i apply to med school. he doesn’t believe 

in daughters either. his faith is haiti’s, 

a constitution, no person is worthy of 

being a Haitian who is not a good father, 

a good son, a good husband, and especially 

a good soldier. 

especially, 

meaning: the fight comes before the family. 

meaning: good only exists in one language at a

time, and love has orders,so it always leaves. 

and when it comes home–if it comes home, 

it greets us with a gun, as if we’re supposed 

to know what to do with a soldier in a house 

built for a father. 

today, mama told me my dad was in critical

condition. the ICU has codes for every kind of dying. 

they are doing everything they can. 

my daddy, a body fought for. 

but his condition is worsening. 

the conditions are overcrowded. 

there are too many conditions. 

he hasn't seen a doctor. women 

are roomed with men. they piss on tile, 

with three-minute showers every 4 days. 

this is the worst of america’s hospitals, 

and the best of its immigration detention centers. 

mama tells me he wears handcuffs in the lobby, 

my father lives in a lobby. for a moment, 

i thought a coma might have better lighting 

than his future. a ventilator, truer than 

immigration officers.

america is a hospital made of waiting rooms 

they keep building around what they don’t

want to treat. where daddy thought he’d heal

from surviving war without bullets. where 

he sat and sat and sat until someone decided 

he was neversick, just foreign. 

daddy came to america to be especially. 

to naturalize every hypertension diagnosis. 

to raise a daughter who could earn a full ride 

and major in the wrong thing and still send 

her mom grocery money every week. 

who could say thank you in every room, 

even when she meant please. 

once, a president headlined haiti 

a shithole on a thursday. by sunday, 

daddy was vacuuming. cleaning 

the sofa, before shithole 

turned sinkhole. he scrubbed 

our fridge doors, re-folded clothes, 

as if the house looked american enough, 

we’d get to stay. 

maybe especially as in good soldier. 

obedient. useful. dead & neutral about 

our dead. especially as in i’ve done 

everything right: full ride, wrong major, 

and halved paychecks. 

letting you call me brave 

so you wouldn’t have to be anything at all. 

if they send him back– 

in a box, or chains, to a country 

he won't survive again, i will 

not write another poem. 

i’ll be especially, 

meaning: 

our fight outlasts our families.

To Register to Vote in This State, You Must Correctly Answer the Questions in This Examination 

1. How many seeds are in a  watermelon, boy? How many bubbles in a bar of soap? How many  scrubbings does it take for the tar of your skin to rinse off? Have you tried lye? Have you tried salvation?  2. When did your mother stop bathing you, boy? Did she turn her head when she handed you the soap? What did your father say the first time he caught the length of your want? Did he laugh? Tell you to get it out of your system? Did he tell you to find a girl who’d let you practice?  3. When did you first learn you were ugly?  4. Did your Ma tell you not to look people in the eye, boy? Did your Pa tell you to always look people in the eye? Who was right?  5. Calculate the depth of the river where they found your Uncle Charles.  Convert to meters. Now miles.  Convert to the sound a Negro mother makes when she learns bodies can hold water like a vase.  6. Can you read this? Can you read it good, like you ain’t been practicing words all mornin’? Can you read it backward? How ‘bout in the dark? Now try it with a mouth fulla cotton and a God who ain’t takin’ calls today.  7. Define liberty. Use the dictionary if you like. Use your own words if you

brave enough. 8. At what temperature does a cross burn? How long do a body swing ‘fore you can call it a metronome?  9. Print a word that looks the same whether it is printed frontward or backward.  10. Did you kiss that white girl behind the gym bleachers, boy? Did you press your dirty mouth on hers and believe, just for a second, the world was somewhere else that day?  11. In the space below, write the word “history” backwards and place a dot over what would be its second letter should it have been written forward.  12. How many times have you  daydreamt yourself hanging?  13. Open your mouth, boy. Wider. You got your wisdom teeth yet?  14. Did you stand in line for six hours today? You bring a chair? A white man to vouch for you? Did you check your tone when you asked for help? Did you double-check your tone?  15. What was your SAT score?  16. How many grains of sugar in a spoonful, boy? How many grains of sand in an hourglass that runs  backward whenever it sees your hands? When’ll you learn we ain’t never needed your answers? Just your waiting.

AMERICAN GENESIS 

1 Then America said, “let there belight,”  and there was light. 

 He saw the light, that it was good. 

 And separated the light from the darkness. 

2 When Boy says he “prefers white girls,” 3 He means he is afraid of the dark. 

4 You learned what makes a body safe. 

Watched bullets follow 

melanin like shadow. Seen shrinkage 

take up too much space. How Black is taken 

to the auction, and stood up at the dance. 

You fixed your silk press for the slow 

song and still, no one asked. 

5 And slavery passed. Returned. 

America said: Let there be a space between the races, to divide the brilliance from the cargo.” 

Hecalled this space "beauty standards.” 

And saw it was good. 

6 When Boy says he “prefers mixed girls,” 

7 He never sleeps without a nightlight. In his dreams, he’s Puppet Massa. Colorism becomes applause. Theater. Rivalry. Rope. You bow before anyone 

asks you to. 

8 And America created desire. Made it a machine. And filtered it. Made it repeat itself good. 

9 When black Boy says black girls “aren’t his usual type,” 

10 He fears the monster beneath 

his bed double-knots its durag too. 

Forgets his nose is dinner table-wide, 

a pattern of bodies reaching 

for seconds, thirds, then thousands. 

an “itis” folding his eyes like cloth, 

a beauty he snores over 

just to hunger for again. 

His Black,stuck at the dance, 

pointing at the exit 

of his own blood. Six feet of promise, waiting 

to be planted. 

America said: Let there be light. And made a god that could not look back. He called him white. And everything else, a border. 

And on the final day: a crucifixion. A country wiping

its mouth. The boy hanging 

by the punctuation. 

11 So daughter, 

before you ask if he likes black girls— 

12 Remember the universe was born in darkness, in expansion. 

She is the original black girl. 

He will sit on the edge of your bed 

and declare morning 

asif he were first to survive the dark. Asif light is his birthright. 

You decide when it is morning. 

Your dark dictates what shines. 

Say, 

let there belight.