Khalisa Rae | Mermaids & Ghost Ships | Poets Resist

Khalisa Rae is a queer black activist, that speaks and writes with fierce rebellion. She published her first book Real Girls Have Real Problems, in 2012. Her recent work has been seen in numerous journals including Requiem Magazine, Dirty Chai, and Tishman Review, the Obsidian, Anchor Magazine, New Shoots Anthology, Red Door, Red Press — Anatomy of Silence Anthology, among others. She is a finalist in the Furious Flower Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize and a winner of the Fem Lit Magazine Contest, and the Voicemail Poetry Contest. She is a former staff-editor of the QU Lit Mag, and currently serves as Co-editor and Co-Director of Athenian Press — literary safe space collective and indie press for women/femme/gnc/trans folks. Her full-length poetry collection is forth-coming.

Khalisa Rae's Website

Also by Khalisa Rae: Being Black Eve Leaves Adam for Yvette

Poets Resist
Edited by Sage
February 27, 2019

Khalisa Rae

Mermaids & Ghost Ships

— after visiting the African American History Museum Off the coast of Cape Town deep sea divers discovered remnants of our bodies stuck to the roof of the mouth of the ocean like gemstones — a treasure chest of bones choking on saltwater. Cadavers hidden under the floorboards of the sea. Parts of this pirate ship a floating testament to the iron chains, now a rusting relic. Wood warped and withered carrying memories of men made to lie head-to feet, rows of bodies boarded up beneath the deck. Ask Olaudah Equiano, he will tell you of the bloodlines scattered. The Atlantic Carrying the putrid waste, the bile & disease, the screams of women and children who were raped purely to pass the time. Their cries muffled by the crashing of the waves. Whips, boots, jaws and teeth settled beneath the hull; each limb proof that we were stolen cargo. And some will still refute the evidence claiming we were merely mermaids, just ghosts to sing about, a myth and nothing more.