Veins prominent, skin all hills and valleys, fingers gnarled
Held babies, rolled out pie crust, picked berries
Shook with rage, raised protest signs, cast votes in every election
Sewed curtains, wove wall hangings, embossed leather
Clutched cigarettes, threw chicken necks for fun, dealt solitaire
Held a scared child’s hand, fed stray cats, wrote a master’s thesis at 50
The hands of a woman, wife, mother, sister, friend
These hands spoke volumes and never will again
There were eight,
now there’s two Aunties.
Gone before, I really got to know them.
I needed them so…
Cheated of my birthright.
My freckled face their face.
Their fair skin my skin.
My soft hair their hair.
I missed out on,
a cultural identity,
a loving large family,
knowing my father.
My mother, father,
and maternal grands
all decided I didn’t
need to know.
If it were not for my
great-grandmother, Muh
I would know nothing.
She lobbied for my knowing.
She heard the neighborhood
children teasing and taunting me
for my pale skin and silky hair.
She told me I was Creole.
Muh told my grandmother to
introduce me to my father.
Told her about the teasing.
She argued against it but relented.
She grabbed me from play one day,
Someone wants to meet you!
A man stood smiling with blue eyes
and skin paler than mine, I knew.
Do you know who this is?
Looking around for my tormentors,
Knowing, I shook my head no.
His blue eyes went sad.
She looks like my sisters.
Webster’s said Creole: French & Spanish.
France and Spain are in Europe.
Europeans are white, my teasers were right!
Young lovers,
after curfew,
in the park.
She whispers
birdsong to
the dark.
“I am a student, eager
to learn, teach me how
to bring these stars
down around you.
I want to make
a gift to you
of the sky.”
He lies back
on her trifold blanket
and replies,
“And if the stars
aren’t yours
to give?”
She snuggles
closer
and says,
“Then I offer
you all of me,
instead.”
“Well then,”
he smiles and
strengthens
his embrace,
the galaxy from
them fades,
they lie entwined,
eyes shut,
“Well then, I’d just as soon
the stars stay put.”
she was plain on the outside;
basic and white
she had many layers of moods;
hid out of sight
luna violet for violent howling into a twilit night
it was safer to be honest with strangers;
who never saw her in the light
deep indigo for her confidence is too low to let her skin show with might,
she weeps herself to sleep like a willow until tears seep into the inside of her pillow, ineluctably trite
ultramarine blue she acts keen too, in fright, standing in an umbra tundra strewn from a nefarious moon to cause contrite
emerald green, imperiled and mean out of spite
a malevolent queen who sees detriment and disesteem with delight
chartreuse yellow;
she holds shards of truth sour like morello when she shares a bite
an hour of dour barred by the playing of a cello after seeing you with foresight
orange apricot she’s soft, over emotions she thought she lost, but not quite;
aeriform turns to frost as warmth declines with exhaust, overnight
candy apple red,
she recites playful rhymes in her head that excites
she does does it every time the moment feels right
Never was a breakfast guy
But lately I have found
That breakfast, oh yes breakfast
Is the greatest meal around!
In high school I needed extra time
To dissociate in the shower.
With all I had to process
I’d be in there half an hour!
When college came I slept in,
So I’d be nice and plucky.
Or, if I had some company,
I might be getting lucky.
But after that, I’m sad to say
I only skipped the table
Because I was hungover, see,
And simply was unable.
But now that I am sober
Diagnosed and medicated,
Please now let me tell you
Of the meal that I just ate-ed:
Three-quarter cups of egg whites,
Scrambled with a spray of Pam;
A single piece of whole wheat toast
With “no sugar added” jam;
On the side a heaping spoonful
Of store bought guacamole,
Two sweet Clementines,
“More plants!” the doctor told me.
Now that I’m a breakfast guy
I have this nagging hunch,
No matter how big breakfast
I’ll still be wanting lunch.
Giovanni’s Room, Philadelphia, 1997. It had been my favorite novel around the time I first fell in love with a girl. Was there another, besides Rubyfruit Jungle? My boss had suggested I go. We were researching the experiences of queer people receiving psychiatric care, which were, let’s say, not good. How many letters was our acronym then? We packed the bookstore’s aisles to hear Kate Bornstein read from A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology, and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She is Today. You young people inspire me, she said, and hugged me tightly.
Wildfires burning.
Classroom libraries shut down.
Please tend your fierce light.
disappeared, orphaned, separated
they call another woman mom
they sing different anthems
I don’t care about
fallen fruit. I want the sun,
that fine mosaic.
(An ekphrastic haiku inspired by this painting by Lexington artist Cheryle Rhodus Walton. Check out her work at ArtHouse Kentucky and on Facebook.)
