“Black Dictionary,” by Jericho Brown

I turned myself into myself and was Jesus.I turned Jesus into a business and wasThe pastor of a megachurch. I turnedThe church out. I’m Whitney Houston.I’m Sam Cooke. I got a squall on me.You want to see where it comes from.I am Black and comely. I am comeTo send fire on the earth . . . not to sendPeace, but a sword. My sword. AllThe myths are only as true as one womanCan be to another. It’s true. I’m so fineYou already know what I look like naked.You dream it every night. Everybody’sA clock, but I’m Jesse Owens. I gotNo respect for a stopwatch. I got noRespect for a stop sign. I inventedThe traffic light. I am the light of the worldWhen the sun shines and the peopleOf California breathe air unsullied.I invented the gas mask. I keep you safe.I invented the home-security system soYou think you’re safe from me. I amThe sanctity of marriage for the manBlack enough to have me. We take turnsTurning each other over. I am broaderThan any idea of myself and as specificAs a word Nikki Giovanni wrote thinkingOf me. She thought of me before I wasBorn and before she lie down like a roadThat turns away from us toward the hillsOf Blacksburg and on into the mountainsWhere even literacy can get lost. WhatAm I to call myself now? Who has a wordWhen I want to be what she saw in me?I turned myself into a question andBecame an orphan in a black suit.I turned from my mourning to the pagesOf our family’s big black dictionary,Orphaned, too, now that everyone’s gotA smartphone. I turned my phone offSo I could hear. She’d say I could walkWhatever. Go fishing. Be the black rodAnd the black hook that catches and feedsThe multitude. She turned me intoJesus, but I can’t seem to raise the dead.