Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah | fade.

my          barber              started             cutting             when               everyone

was          copping   my           cut.          top      high

sides        faded       to            ether.      got      to

the           point       you          weren’t             cool         if

you      weren’t    rocking         it .          you          weren’t

no            barber               talking              bout        how         you

really            didn’t                really                 know               how to

cut           it .           cut      it .           I          grew

up      in             the           age          of        caesars .

afros       mowed             to        make       way         for

the      prosperity   gospel     respectability   politics   promised to  

prosper . now        I              massage   coconut

oil      into                                               my      scalp

feels                                                                               heavenly .

Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah is a Ghanaian-American poet living out the diaspora in Boston, Massachusetts. He is both Black & alive. Emmanuel serves as an associate editor for Pizza Pi Press and as the reviews editor for Winter Tangerine. The former director of curriculum for Boston Pulse, a youth-empowerment organization focused on promoting positive change for young folk and their communities through spoken word, Emmanuel currently teaches High School aged youth as the Walltalk Teaching Artist at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Emmanuel’s work can be found in places such as the Hartford Courant, Narrative Northeast, and Bird’s Thumb. Whenever possible, he enjoys hot carbs, brightly colored chapbooks, and the long sigh at the end of a good book.