they didn’t find us beautiful. The haters
let our skin slip, slowly, from our bones,
satiated our thirst with sludge and brine water,
led us to wrathful prayers offered in caves.
If they didn’t find us beautiful, it was because the haters
forgot white light is a combination
of all colors on the chromatic spectrum
and those colors are Apache, Massai, Imjin River.
Because they don’t find us beautiful, haters are surprised by
the fires in Australia, Brazil, Siberia, beyond; surprised
by the gone extinct Chinese paddlefish, the Midway moth,
glaciers melting in the dead of night so sung the group Muse.
Why don’t they find us beautiful even on the page:
Nobel Morrison scribbling it was a fine cry—loud and
long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles
and circles of sorrow
Why don’t they find us beautiful and celebrate our bodies—
Baryshnikov in full pas de bras because when a body
moves, it’s the most revealing thing dance for me a minute
and I’ll tell you who you are
Why don’t they find us beautiful when we cut art out of space?
I. M. Pei holding his caliper & compass knowing great
architecture is the result of a collective dream the expression
of a society, a period, a culture
If haters don’t find us beautiful, why do they woo us?
If they don’t find us beautiful, why do they plot and plan?
If the haters don’t find us beautiful, why do they lie, lie, lie, lie, lie…lie?
Lynne Thomspon served as Los Angeles’s fourth Poet Laureate. She is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Blue on a Blue Palette. Recent work can be found in The Georgia Review and The Kenyon Review, among others. Thompson is the president of Cave Canem.
