i woke up today thinking of daddy and his garden
so i put on a pot of collard greens just like he would have done
simmering a couple ham hocks for an hour then adding
a few bunches of deep green collards
a sprinkle of red pepper flakes
because you can’t have a grill where i live
i fired up the oven for a slab of baby back ribs
to go with the collards
just like daddy would have done
on a sunday
“We might be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.”
- Jimmy Gator in Magnolia
Come around and see you once in a while/if you ever need a reason to smile
- Isley Brothers, “Hello It’s Me”
this poem has no end
i mean, this song
it runs straight through without skipping
then starts right back up again
think of me
think of me
we are walking down the same road again
he takes long strides while i keep up
by skip-walking beside him
he takes my small hand and laughs
as his big hand seems to devour my small one
i laugh too but not because of our hands
i laugh because today i have a father and today
i am not skinny and black and poor
but big and tall and rich and loved
since i am his little girl today
i do not tell him that my friend jamila jackson
has the same fisher price playhouse in her living room
that i have been waiting for since last christmas
or ask him why the welfare lady from clothes for kids
buys my pants too small and my shirts too big
i do not even tell him about sara remington
who gets to bring lemon bars and barbeque potato chips
to school while i have to stand in the free lunch line
don’t change
don’t change
we look so much the same it’s like looking into a mirror
except i have long pigtails and his short afro
reminds me of jj from good times
that high, proud forehead, those deep-set eyes
straight ahead is the big green field
this is the end of the road
this is the end of our walk
i do not want to cry but the tears come anyway
like falling silver raindrops at the beginning of spring
he does not want to see me cry so he smiles
tickles me under my chin
but i am not ticklish and i do not laugh
he leaves me then
the big green field swallows him up
like the whale did jonah
and i am alone
hovering is the most challenging [1]
part of flying a helicopter
this is because a helicopter generates
its own gusty air while in a hover
which acts against the fuselage
an unadjusted helicopter [2]
can easily vibrate so much
that it will shake itself apart
i was ten and you were five
mouth always screaming wide open
even then you were beautiful
you always came home with wild hair
kinky from braids you’d undone
a pretty ponytail destroyed at recess
even then i knew you would need me
somehow i knew when you were
about to do something wrong
or when someone was going
to do something wrong to you
there was one time i wasn’t there
there was just that one time
i am twenty-six and you are twenty-one
and you are still beautiful and strong
and i am still here if you need me
i am a red helicopter
still hovering
trying to protect you
from the boogeyman
[1] and [2] Text from Wikipedia entry “Helicopter”
peaches are best eaten [1]
when the fruit is slightly soft
having aroma, heated by the sun
I-85 north from atlanta
on my way home from peachtree street
downtown midtown buckhead
sweet iced tea and ripe freestones
scattered honeysuckle flowers
now i know there’s no such thing as forever
but i could eat juicy fruit
on hot georgia days forever
could drive down country roads
lined with magnolia my whole life
and even though forever
is just a made up word for however long
we think we might live to see the sun rise
i find a little peace driving down south
stopping along the way to buy a few peaches to suck on
for the now times
for this life limited by the sun
[1] Text from Wikipedia entry “Peach”
i love only what i can remember:
nights etched in freesia and talc
that one emerald summer
the first time I tasted a mojito
you sat across from me
a green polo and a smile
bossa nova boom in the background
this is how we would begin
when it was time to name me
grandma stepped in
with her mother’s memory in hand
(not Willie, thank God)
but Rosetta, her middle name
in Italian I am like a rose
I let only you call me Rose
upon other’s lips I sound elderly and prim
like beige walking shoes or stewed prunes
I’ve always resisted attempts to rename me
if you mistake me for a Spanish Rosita
my ears shut tight against you
until you get it right
what is it that we ask of God?
the courage to forget
or the grace to remember
i surrender today to the mottled gray fog
to the slate blue thunder rolling
in to meet the clouds
the sky is an open mystery
i found one of your t-shirts today
in a box of old clothes i should have
unpacked a lifetime ago
each wrinkle wrinkled in the same place
as if you had just taken it off
over and across those broad brown shoulders
like granite, like steel
like the sky today holding the sun
hostage inside the fog
on a day like today, we try
to grab onto something
someone, a memory
we try to find a way to hold it all
even a full moon
can’t stop the day
from coming on
the wide open sky sliced open like lemons
when you realize this
you will stop worrying
whether the sun
will come out tomorrow
after Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear
he cut off his ear with a razor [1]
and gave it to a prostitute in Arles [2]
not for love but to show her
he could feel pain
he knew what it was to hear
people walking around in your ears
voices stomping up and down like drums
crimson feet staining your clothes
he knew what it was to feel
chili pepper red sloshing
around in your belly when it gets dark
and the crickets grow silent
no
he didn’t do it for love
and she knew it when she
opened up the dirty napkin
[1] On December 23, 1888 Vincent van Gogh, in a fit of madness, mutilated the lower portion of his left ear. He severed the lobe with a razor, wrapped it in cloth and then took it to a brothel and presented it to one of the women there.
[2] Arles is a city in the south of France where Van Gogh lived
we meet at my favorite restaurant
halfway between your house and mine
you never know how these things
are going to turn out
you, a devout Muslim wearing those Malcolm X glasses
me, a heathen in skinny jeans, leather pumps
when i order a strawberry margarita
your brows furrow in disapproval
i am in first grade again and you
are my white-haired teacher tapping
a wooden ruler against my desk
waiting for the right answer
we hug goodbye and i know
i will never see you again
but i do not care, after all
i am happy and full of tequila
