Shadow and Fact

I imagined my mother dying on a night
when sidewalks were shadowed with spring petals.
I would cradle her head against my breasts,
bathe her in water scented with chamomile blossoms,
perfume her nutmeg skin with gardenias.

A Friday in January, the rail of the hospital bed
warmed in my fists as I listened for her breath.
I exhaled with her and left her side.

Riding home under a starless sky, I hoped 
for two hours of sleep and a bath.
I dreamed of her hands, the fingernails 
she trimmed with her teeth. Silhouettes 
of avocado leaves frolicked on my torso 
as I sat almost naked between her knees.
She waited for the iron combs to heat 
on the coals, then pulled them 
through the bush on my head. Air 
from her lips cooled a forefinger singed 
when I reached up to touch my new straight hair.  

Sunlight on my ankles woke me.   
I called the hospice, then stumbled to the door,
shouting my destination to the taxi driver 
who finally stopped for me on Main Street.

My mother lay the way she always slept,
on her side, a palm curved near her face, 
her rounded chin arched toward the window.
Her unlined forehead, her cheeks, still warm under my kisses.  
I washed her feet with unscented soap,
recited the psalms she taught me and closed her eyes.

The color of the sky was true, clear and pale
as the dress she wore to her grave.



Preparations for the Afterlife

In the doorway of an attic, a daughter stood between guilt and uncertainty.  How could she 
exit, eliminate rent income to an uncle, multiply distance from few living blood relations?
Her mother had not been prone to doubt.  She had packed for diaspora in one suitcase and 
left Port-au-Prince with warning to none.

Sirens drowned creaking eaves, but she heard her mother’s voice giving precise direction.  
Cotton on Main Street should handle the arrangements.  Red petals are for the joyful, unprepared to leave.  
No reception after the funeral.  The bedroom set should go to someone in need.  Keep the white sheets I bought 
for last days in Haiti.

Mandates were delivered with panorama of slights and rivalries.  Her mother tallied debts 
owed, resolving, For any good I did, for being caretaker, no regrets.  Her exhausted eyes mirrored 
the future like a sage reading bones.  Mwen pa vlé kité ou pou kont ou.  Yo pap aidé ou.  
The daughter did not accept this prediction of aloneness until divisions solidified, until some 
became angry when nothing was left in their names, until she embraced legal threats for 
unpaid medicals, until she listed what was worth selling, until visitor passes to her sick room 
idled at a front desk while staples burned a horizontal scar on her uterus.  You have been present 
and useful, so love for you will be measured by conditions.  Viv tankou moun ki pa gen fenmi.

She played her mother’s last instruction like a favorite ballad.  She parceled clothing, unworn 
shoes to a Miami ministry and hauled mattress and box spring to a friend in Brooklyn.  
The daughter sealed embroidered linen in plastic as if afraid they would dissipate like clouds.  
Movers loaded belongings unto a truck and as the October wind rattled oak leaves to the 
path at her heel, she began saving her own life.


Mwen pa vlé kité ou pou kont ou.  Yo pap aidé ou.	- “I don’t want to leave you alone.  They will 
not help you.

Viv tankou moun ki pa gen fenmi. – Live like someone without a family.			




Incident at Rider’s Lake


Behind me is home, a city 
of asphalt tinted crimson 
with wounds. Kompas and bachatta 
rhythms rain down from bedrooms 
above storefronts and on the first 
of each month, single mothers 
budget state allotments 
for laundry, milk and canned corn.
Here, under a harvest moon and muted lanterns, 
I languish with the narcissistic willow 
watching itself in a mirror of water.
Duck matrons gaggle lullabies 
to their children among stray dandelions, 
and Nova Scotia geese gorge on night-crawlers 
as they resettle campus grasslands.  
The lake, abundant with catfish gray as clay,
trickles to nowhere as I walk,
considering language and economics, 
believing I could be safe, free 
to roam whatever ocean. Rumblings 
of a two-seater muscle car and the question,

 “Is a nigger chick pink inside?”

slice open the calm sky.  
Did Emmett Till wither too
with sudden hummingbird heart,
with this wildfire consuming viscera,
before they deafened him with a .45 bullet,
barb-wired that gin fan to his neck 
and capsized his battered vessel?  I bite down 

retort as one blonde head, a mouth 
tense with sneer, leans out of the passenger side.
Steel-belted tires halt 
before skid marks on tar inform 
that journeys for equal chances and degrees 
would not secure protection
within, without collegiate grounds
because white men can claim
history’s proclivities,
make this lakeside acre a plantation, my body, chattel
and aroused with violent curiosity
satisfy desire to cavern me from vulva to psyche.




Meeting the Last Mistress


When my parents dated again in their middle ages,
I saw my mother happy, smoothing her hand-made dress,
a floral tapestry against a black background, 
laughing often with my father at her table.
I allowed myself to wish for the mending,
the reclamation of moments before I began
storing secrets for my father.

On a weekend when he did not travel to East Orange, 
the pear trees, cherry blossoms reaching toward the sun
left me restless with their fragrance. I went to Dean Street 
where he welcomed me with ease and introduced me 
to a stranger leaving his bed in a black peignoir.

“Why so angry?  Never seen you like this,” he wondered, smiling.

Summers between college semesters, he paraded me 
in front of one girlfriend in early afternoon, then warned, 
“Keep your mouth shut. This is none of your business.” 
before he took me to the best of them at dusk, the one 
who got him union work after immigration to Brooklyn
and treated me like blood relation.

One more mistress completed intimate cleanup 
in his bathroom. Obligatory Haitian girl politeness 
incinerated with thoughts of him seven days before,
exalting rapture, my mother below him, believing in bliss.
I closed his door behind me as the last mistress I would meet began her small talk.





Rumor


The trouble started on New Year's Eve
when the short aunt reported what the tall one said,
"Your mother's got $100,000 in the bank," and cautioned
"Pran têt out pitit.  Pran têt ou!"
My mother was in ICU pumping morphine for the pain.
They took my silence for confirmation.

When the time came, one aunt translated the eulogy,
the other admired my black suit before asking
for all of my mother's coats.
One invited, "Vin viv lakay mwen!"
Both watched me pay for limousines, vault, a double-deep plot.
No garnish or dandelion offered for the coffin.
They raised my bounty by $20,000.

If my relatives have a barbecue,
they invite me to bring the Idahos, mayonnaise, buns,
something vital besides myself.
They shouted, "Li sé gran nègès kounyea!"
from East Orange to Port-au-Prince
when I left my uncle's attic for a one-bedroom
with no addicts on the stoop.
Interest on my worth continued to multiply.

The tall aunt claimed, 
"My little sister told me she would recover, 
work again to help me live,"
then waited for a response worthy of her praise.

Mornings after the night shift, 
my mother whispered in God's ear, 
crafted her dresses, her slips,
bedspreads from discounted cloth
so that she could give whenever family needed.

Someone else will be responsible 
for back rent, tuition, or bail. 
I will show up well dressed for weddings or funerals 
and sleep undisturbed on pieces of my fortune, 
a pillowcase with scalloped edges, 
an unfinished afghan, 
satisfied that I owe fenmi nothing.




Serpentine Incidents
	after Wallace Stevens

1. 
Eve, breathless with novel sensation.
Lips, tongue teasing Adam’s erection.
Later, she saw the serpent’s slanted daffodil eyes, 
The ever-smiling mouth. She woke
Crying, spelling desire as shame.

                                        2.
                                        Confounded by the late, late movie,
                                        Cleopatra’s insomniac spirit muttered,
                                        “What the hell is this?  
                                        After suicide with asps, my last resistance.
                                        Did I come back white and forget? Damn!” 
                                        How else could she explain her saga played out
                                        By an epidermal stranger with violet eyes.

          3.
          In the hills where Taino danced,
          A single woman wanted peace from three vicious sisters 
          And bought a secluded acre with wild shadows.  An albino
          Serpent languished on her avocado branch.

                                        4. 
                                        Serpent jaw creaked open and consumed
                                        Whole prey wider than its body. 
                                        Not tall as the cherry hibiscus,
                                        The daughter wanted her father in battle stance.
                                        “Your namesake was slayer of the dragon Python,” he
                                        reminded as he placed a machète in her hand.
 
5.  
The water sang refrain of washwomen
at daybreak.  The serpent bathed
Searching for inattentive creatures,
Belly beating tempo on wet stones.

                               6.
                               A husband writhed atop his mistress
                               As his wife hung the wash.  The serpent
                               Paused at her feet, shook its head at her circumstance
                               And continued to travel. 

 
7.
A stealth cat wanted to claw crevices on a spiraled white layer.
The marquis head rose, bared fangs and shattered curious bravery.

                                      8.
                                      Skin merchants coveted capture in the distance.
                                      Forked tongue smelled fear and envy.
                                      Muscled body undulated high in leaves, 
                                      scales gleaming like platinum.
		
9.
Electric summer on MLK Boulevard.
Pet serpent explored pea green deli counter.
Favorite eatery abandoned, a woman dreamed
Of armor, Excalibur as man and perfect against demons.