Black Girl Magic

Amelia Bailey

At the ancestral graves, they ask, what are you?

And in the chill of the night, I reply,

I am the shadow of the sun, the darkest hue.

In ancient tombs, a bellow rolls through

as a rumble of thunder shakes the sky

and the ancestral graves, they ask, what are you?

I drop to my knees like a sinner in the pew

and I cry for answers as I look to the sky,

I am the shadow of the sun, the darkest hue.

I rise like Georgia cotton fields that renew

me as the edges of my mind cannot deny—

At the ancestral graves, they ask, what are you?

With love, they draw from my soul what is true,

I am the daughter of Sheba and Sojourner. I cry,

I am the shadow of the sun, the darkest hue.

And in my trembling hands, I am imbued

with the magic already in me. And in my truth, I fly.

At the ancestral graves, where they ask, what are you?

I am the shadow of the sun, the darkest hue.

Amelia Danielle Bailey is a recipient of The Gary Mitchner Poetry Prize, an honorable mention from the Spectrum Awards, and a True Colors Writing winner. She is a freelance writer and tutor whose work has also appeared in Flights and is a co-founder of the TTRPG awareness community, The Pillow Fort Crew. She lives in Ohio with her sister and two cats. She can be found at knightwrite.weebly.com, @JanetheUnicornL on twitter, and @PillowFortCrew on twitter.