Dark Matters Poem by Valerie Laws

Inside, all our brains are black. I've seen it, fossil traces
Of how we all looked, when melanin shaded us
From the burn and blight of African sun. Those born
Pale sickened, became nobody's ancestors. We children
Of those who thrived, still carry a coaly seam of it
In our heads, our minds growing blacker as we grow wiser:
A by-product of thinking, like art, and war, and dreaming,
Til it dwindles with dementia, fading with memory. So
Let us celebrate neuromelanin, the dark matter
Within the grey, the white, the red. Let us celebrate
Melanocytes, for flipping up tiny black parasols to
Keep the stark sun's harm from our cells; and for
Learning to keep them furled by random mutation
As some of us moved north, lest our bones crumble
Through lack of light. Now we can choose
Where we live, wear clothes, hats, SPF50, make fire,
Take vitamin D, our skins still show how evolution
Cared for us until we learned to care for ourselves,
If not yet, sufficiently for one another.