Glory of the Blacker Berry

Today. Let us forget the blunt-edged sorrows.
Remember the black joys, my darker brother—

the high laughter of women, the bright, unbothered
stride of boys. We have died more times than the days

have names, yet here is the breath. The living.
Don’t you want it all? To inhabit the skin to the fullest?

The chain days have passed, and the cotton days,
the caged days, the muted-color days. Let them go.

What matters now is the feast of this survival.
The glory of our own light, black light.

Look at us: the deeper the root, the sweeter the juice.
Glory of the blacker berry, split wide open to the sun.

Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri is a Ghanaian poet whose work has appeared/forthcoming in Poetry Wales, Prairie Schooner, Colorado Review and North American Review. Winner of the 2025 African Writers Award and runner-up for the 2026 Cambridge Poetry Prize. Instagram @poetraniel