2023 Commended - Lauren Lisk, 'A Black Girl Fears the Sun'

LAUREN LISK

Commended - 2023 Tower Poetry Competition, 'The Planets'

A Black Gir Fears the Sun

a golden shovel

These days spread like caramel, sticking to my fingers like the ashes you gave him. He

Is haloed and here again, rising like helium. I must be dreaming. In this eclipse there is

A tree that wears leaves and a memory that is stuck in main sequence. Then a

Boy beneath, who’s too bloody to resemble the moon. In this light, I am almost celestial

With my skin stifled of glow like every other black body,

Except effulgent you, who has wandered in and distinguished

Itself as shadow after being laid to rest, if sounds from

Their mothers’ throats are silenced. In space it is quiet. My eyes are fixed

Anywhere but here. During summer, my ancestors plough stars

Endlessly. They do not know what it is like to be free by

Name. It is like having

Skin that burns in your light and chars itself like an

Act of self-sacrifice. They tell me tek tɛm like it is apparent

I am constantly turning in my sleep, whilst you haven’t even begun the motion

Of rotating from your grave at dawn. I wish the sunset of

Earth was blue. And you could feel as I do. This boy doesn’t deserve death and His

Orbit. This boy deserves to radiate warmth instead of the darkness that’s his own.

‘tek tɛm’ - a Krio term meaning be careful