The Tempest Lives within a Marmalade by Charles K. Frempong-Longdon Jr.

They picked blackberries from black girls’ skinny fingers.

And told them a truth unconfirmed and speculative of wicked minds.

This juice we drink is product of the fruits of their labor.

Cursing Malcolm for this inheritance we beg not for our thirst to be quenched by our own blood.

For this forced cannibalism creates a hunger deeper than The Deluge.

My empty belly calls out for sustenance in a wide world full of mangos and Jack fruit

How come we can’t feed our children?

Dying slowly of a biblical drought hoping that rain water will patter softly in these steel bowls

I crafted them from my shackles.

Unbound but without the components necessary to live, I waste away slowly like a raisin in the sun

Charles K Frempong-Longdon Jr. is first-generation American, a poet, and a rapper based in Minneapolis, MN.

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