She

She comes in all the colors

In forms and curves

Through curly red, flowing locks

Her pale, freckled skin

She’s in the dreadlocks

In braids that her mother’s

Mother taught her mother before

She is draped in wisdom and strength

Handed down like an heirloom

She is in the faces

Her cries for justice unheard

She smothered her way

Through slavery, corsets,

Through civil rights

Through ages of lawmakers

Telling her and her before, no.

Through every march, protest

With every right, law, bruised ego

She has clawed, screamed and climbed

Her voice, her voice and her voice.

Voices of our oldest mothers and theirs

Your sisters, your daughters

She is the reason we are all here.

She, her, she and her, her, and her.

With a drop of the gavel

The echoes of her voices

Silenced.