If My Blackness Turns to Fruit

By E. Ethelbert Miller
Dear America, my love.
If my blackness turns to fruit
do not pull it from the vine;
let it grow from earth to sky
untouched by hateful hands.
So sweet, my juice, my jazz,
my blues, so sad but true.
Dear America, my love.

Look behind your prison walls.
Count the black seeds behind bars,
the cells where nothing blooms.
Can hope flower from despair?
Yes, America, my love,
resistance comes and then the rain.

Notes:

“If My Blackness Turns to Fruit” is reprinted from Collected Poems of E. Ethelbert Miller (Willow Books, 2016) and is part of the folio “E. Ethelbert Miller: Friendship Is What Keeps Us Whole.” Read the rest of the folio in the November 2025 issue of Poetry.

Source: Poetry (November 2025)