glitterature for the mobs
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​Naima Woods

Picture

​Shadow Black as a dead girl
I am beautiful and fat
and in an alley and under a bed
and even my own Shadow Black
home. You still want me because
I'm beddable, even decapitated like this.
I know that some of you will use me
to soften your guilt, like see I get it.
The news is likely to have a woman
with a puckered brow and perfect nude
lips tell you that I am suspected
of selling sex or worse than that.
The news will construct me as not ideal.
The news will say that I am selling
myself as if I ever felt my body was
mine, as if my shadow hadn't been
bought and sold in all of its previous
incarnations. Some of our mothers
will use me as a warning, don't

be this child, as if any of the babies
who will become shadows
will know how to be seen as bodied,
or as more than just a body’s line.
As if some of you will not look at them
and say damn, because you think
​we're still beddable, even without our heads.
Shadow Black as the headlines
Death of Shadow Black
Shadow Black’s arrest, death and the aftermath
Decision on where to hold Shadow Black trials, stir emotions
Shadow Black riots: City emails show chaos, confusion
Shadow Black Cost Estimated $9 Million in Damages
Following Shadow Black, Killings in City Soar
From Black to Shadow: The consequences
              of government-sponsored segregation
Shadow Black largely peaceful
The part of the Shadow Black you haven’t seen
Thousands Rally in Shadow Black
Shadow Black: a timeline
What We Know About the Shadow Black Arrest
Violence and Chaos: A visual timeline of Shadow Black
Shadow Black death: Autopsy shows homicide, paper says
City looks into Shadow Black police custody death
Fundraiser to benefit officers charge in Shadow Black trial
Law enforcement sources say Shadow Black suffered
Shadow Black Arrest Record, Criminal History, Rap Sheet
Who was Shadow Black?
Who was Shadow Black?
Who was Shadow Black?

The trouble with craving whiteness
Your meal is set,
they gave you the girl to eat.
Finish all her hipped blonde
but your eyes don't read hungry.


Your jaw is weak because you aren't
taking enough in: vitamin D, iron,
good medicine. Just one blue eye
and then another, just their sweet
gristle and chew.


This is a collaboration
between seamlined bone, her perfect choke
of hair and your hollow mouth.
Locks twisted like twine, the gauzy
film of scalp, the skull beneath, all yours.


How does her meat break down?
You feel the fat pare from muscle and between
your teeth you can chew all
of her sandy skin—a glutton for Beauty.


You look in the mirror after--
you are really still raw umber in flat glass,
still pinched at the breast, after all that gorging.
Your face keeps chestnut, lips still
pressed out from your teeth.


You search for shinywhite under the brown,
check your hairline, your irises. You pat
your distended belly, a devotional of the ugly.
You know what comes next.
You eat the girl.

NAIMA WOODS is a writer and educator living and working in the countryside of Southern New Mexico. She is currently pursing her MFA at New Mexico State University. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Tent Residency fellow. Her chapbook, MAKE WITNESS, was published by Zoo Cake Press in 2015. New work can be read in Nepantla, Blackberry: a magazine, Broad, Specter Magazine, Bone Bouquet, Glint Magazine and elsewhere.
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