Poetry by Zyen Mingo-Smoot
Zyen Mingo-Smoot is an African-American and Afro-Indigenous poet from Varnado, Louisiana. Her primary themes are tackled through the contemporary southern gothic where she gathers the 20th century genre to examine modern-day socialization, landscape, and culture of the Deep South.
Winn-Dixie
Something like Mardi Gras,
but everyone’s in there for supper
and no one would admit their
liquor intake over their lifetime
to anyone around them,
maybe the cashier, but even then,
Winn-Dixie don’t let them type
in.
In fact, there’s a lot of sugahs
and honey to women of the same
age—a lot of sweetness about the women,
but neither would look the other
in the eye, like, Winn-Dixie don’t
let them type in and
the market has
what everyone in there is
looking for and is expecting,
and all the women still have husbands
to still get home before
if not someone else to care for
a mother, a son, someone else’s
child and if A-Miss
is not feeding her rounds
then what the hell else is she doing?
Winn-Dixie,
she don’t let
them type
in
brushing past each other
flustered, wondrous
careful like a fresh pot of tea
and I said, what else
is she doing?
a book to read: market newspaper, The Bible
a book to read and Winn-Dixie the next day
and I mean, what else
can she do?
might, maybe
will, possibly, she,
don’t know, what she
got
Weezy F. Baby and the “F” is
For each and everyone of yal
wr tied to th same umbilical cord
Baby,
you a legend
and they know yr words
like th first taste of
Baby,
milk, baby running before
walking, baby, swinging before
huggin’, baby, hustlin’ for lovin
And you are what they are and
that mean alotta things
red hat or dreadlocks
and that meant alotta things
“I don’t give a fuk”
but I do know how to want
it here. it everywhere. i want it
like the casket exposure,
Beloved baby, i want
left alone in this mess k
now you gone have fun
if anything, you know
Some mess and fun
and music always been
there to reason with everything
seen a bullet run through
Skin, bone,
you seen it run through you,
water running, fields burning,
they seen you cool and dry
they seen you ginger ale
And crown royal stepping heavy
and wild and weird, they seen the stars
and break through the dark to dream
they express themselves like yr pair of shades
and dust, smoke