Abstract
Genealogy
sweeping off the back steps
with the florida sun sweating me,
i wait for grandma carrie
to bring her big knife.
grandma’s got the only suga cane
in the hood—been growin’ it
since she buried granpa willie.
1965
when the knife comes out
grandma’s hand is attached and strong
it points to the far right of the garden
we both follow
i’ve never seen a thing so long
so sharp
the first whack must be the widest
let the knife come up behindcha head
i watch as she hacks into the stalk
with the force of seventy years
you know these canes is like us
cross bred and mixed up
at ten i don’t know what she means
but i nod yes ma’m.
the second and third whacks bang
into the joints
they buckle
like hungry knees.
when we’ve collected three long pieces
grandma shows me how to strip the husk
an archer pulling back her bow
she won’t let me touch the knife
stripped and naked
the wheat-colored flesh
is placed in grandma’s finest china
we sit on the back steps
legs open like v’s
delicate bowls between them
chew all the juice, don’t swallow the straw,
suck hard till all the sweet is gone
then spit the dry stuff out
her chewing is slow
each bite seems precious
these seeds were stolen
from my daddy’s farm
when i was just his girl-patient
a two-colored secret him and my mama shared
i can hear the sugar leave her singing
the heat making it hard to separate
sweat from tears.
i keep chomping
the pieces too big for my mouth
it’s the strangest candy i’ve ever tasted
saliva and sweat creep to the sides of my smile
The Only Time I Wanted to be a Man
i want to know
how the sky is blue
not why but how
she tells me they are the same
the answers
the sky and the ocean meet
they are the same
my house is chaos
generations crashing
into each other like waves
on the shore i want to know
why we argue so much
she tells me we are the same
young and old
the past and the future meet
they are the same
i retreat to the beach
listen to waves crash
against themselves theses collisions
soothe me
give me escape
from shouting women
temper tantrums
clashing attitudes and
closets always filled
with pampers
i want to know why
our men never stay
she tells me they are like waves
washing up and receding
the same as the tide
i stay at the beach for hours
waiting for them to come
watching the colors blend and fade
dreading home
and hoping
i become
a wave
A House Without Wallpaper
Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.
—P. J. O’Rourke
before mama’s back surgery
every Friday we fried fish
cornmeal-battered with creole dotting the flesh
the aunts & cousins piled in four & six at a time
the uncles came later
drunk, high, and hungry
their paychecks half spent
by the time the card games started
the air moved stale across the night
us kids ripped & ran all sugared-up & sticky
nothing but shirts or pants holding us in place
by 1 in the morning
Nina Simone, Billy Holiday, Earth,
Wind & Fire had plastered the walls
in that moment there were no mothers
no fathers
just a house full of bodies
barely clinging to the sense god gave them
Saturday, the realness pushed in
we peeled each other from somnolence
recognized the kinship
took up our rightful roles
its funny how a recollection snaps to change
the way we hold ourselves in the mind
alters how we stand, where we sit, who we love
the night after was always quiet
the television on a low croon
stillness settled into the creases of the couch
turkey necks simmering for Sunday’s soup
the corners of the house held up by sin & shame.
