Forbidden Love (Segregation)

Josephine Oluwakanmi

It’s 1950 and 
I am black coffee.
You pour me out.
Now I am empty. 
Did my blackness threaten you?
Now I am a silhouette.
The residue of a few faithful granules
Cling to the body I was just getting to know.

She is a mug,
But I am her lover.
Adorned in white,
Her ceramic coat cradles my bitter soul.
And then there’s you!
You like me bitter but you don’t like me black. 
Does my blackness threaten you?

You see the way she holds me,
Caresses me after you coarsely grind me into pieces.
Her touch so soft, so tender 
That I forget of your attempt to drown me in boiling water.

I didn’t even catch her name.
And you, Jim Crow, the brutish fool who was threatened by my blackness 
And dare I say, our love.

Even if it is illegal for us to be together
I will wait. 
I just hope she will wait for me.