He seemed so nice

he has two parents and a football trophy.
he holds the cigarette butt until he can put it in the garbage.
he takes out the trash and recycling and wheels the cans back into the yard.
he curbs the dog.
he waves at you while mowing the lawn.
irons his confederate flag before he lays it across the hood of his pickup.
he signals before turns.
taught to hunt like his daddy.      
a man who takes his life out on everyone else.
cleans his gun before he shoots.  
picks up the cans & shells after practice.
scopes game & attacks when least expected.
manipulates the art of silence.  

& blinking, finally, dabs the sweat off his brow,        
stands over this bloodied once in a blue body.  
‘cause nice men always take out the trash, don’t they?  

About Roya Marsh:

A Bronx, New York native, Roya is a nationally recognized poet, performer, educator and activist. She is the Poet in Residence at Urban Word NYC and works feverishly toward LGBTQIA justice and dismantling white supremacy. Roya’s work has been featured in Poetry Magazine, Flypaper Magazine, Frontier Poetry, the Village Voice, Nylon Magazine, Huffington Post, Button Poetry, Def Jam’s All Def Digital, Lexus Verses and Flow, NBC, BET and The BreakBeat Poets Vol 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket 2018).

In Spring 2020, MCD × FSG Originals  published Roya Marsh’s dayliGht, a debut collection of experimental poetry exploring themes of sexuality, Blackness, and the prematurity of Black femme death—all through an intersectional feminist lens with a focus on the resilience of the Black woman.  

(Roya can be found on instagram and twitter under the handle @champagnepoet.)