The Fair Ones

The chalk
Ivory
smooth
Prized by those steady hands

The board
Ebony
Dusty with erasures
Ashen like their Black skin
Bruised with insecurities

If only the hue would ebb with a blink of their eyes
If only they could blanch the coal
If only they could wash away the soot
If only it would peel with vigorous scrubbing

The fair ones have not yet sprouted
Only the colored bloomed
But they were born with eyes closed

And with eyes closed they roam the earth
Healing truth bubbling just beneath the cracked clay

Beauty is fluid
A cage surrounds its borders
It seeps through the cracks
So that lovely faces emerge in vanilla skies
In melanin the shade of rain-kissed earth