FlowerI ainât know when I laid down on the floor crying out for my Grandmothers to come in and help me in this healing that Francis Taylor was classified as a breeder. I ainât know her daughter, my Great-Grandmother, Susie Moody narrowly escaped forced sterilization by following her oldest daughter Rebecca up north to the apartment they all shared. I ainât know about the nervous breakdowns and maladaptive coping mechanism in my blood. I just knew I needed to hear their voices, to feel their hands. endurance
I am dry
under the body
busy working
itâs way to some place
unfamiliar
yet somehow
inside me.
Hear me,
the wet body
is not mine
it belongs
to the other.
See meâ
passive opening,
mouthing anguish,
dry and elsewhere.
My body
down there,
the body
over me
raining its salt
into my mouth.
A taste
I enjoy
to spite
the ache
the hermit-woman takes a lover
after gayl jones
i am a woman/generous/with place and things/stingy/with time and soul/except for this/stranger
and so it goes/ i throw my flesh/ into your mouth,
watch you chew/ with wide-eyes
most times i am thrilled/ others i forget
to breathe/and in/this stifled/ presence/ i leave/ my body
as iâve/ been trained/to do/and wait
for you/ to finish/so that i/ may rest/again
Some nights talking to god and talking to pussy bleed into each other.
I grope my self in search of ovaries and sometimes feel something
but most nights itâs no groping just a laying on of my own hands
tryna conjure all the sorrow
out the song
somebody forgot to tell somebody something
âParticularly the women. What women say to each other and what they say to their daughters is vital information, thatâs education. Itâs not gossip, itâs not girl talk, itâs information . . . And they either have to discover it for themselves, and through incredible amounts of trauma, or they have to invent themselves . . .â
âToni Morrison in conversation with Ntozake Shange (1978)
5
What do you do when the blood stops early?
4
When i become this weeping needing thing? This deep breathing wet-faced monster of my self? What kinda swamp i donâ dug myself out of? How i get here? How this hurt here? How a chest tighten itself into pumped fist?
3
Who taught me how to love half empty? In what language did i first learn to plead for closeness? How did Grandma Sarah spell out her lonely? What kinda pot she cook it in? Did my mother watch? Might there be a recipe book up underneath the bed?
2
Where do we go to hum out these bones? Is there a stretch of muscle that sings in the right key? How iâmma get there? When iâmma get my license? Will they let me rest tonight?
1
What sound you supposed to make when itâs over? How did you know youâve arrived? What else might surrender mean? How often do you change the sheets?
amenorrhea
spirits smack talk up
and down my spine asking
for shit in languages
I canât hear yet
& all I can offer is a wet face.
the wound burrows itself
across the mound they mark
âreproductiveâ
& the mirror prays too, my breast held
out like communionâtake, eat, this
is the body broken for you
& I wish it was that easy,
Iâve pretended often
a mouth latch on
to suck and Iâll moan out
some sort of mantra, some thing
they need
& they leave or get booâd off
the stage this bed has become
& somehow Iâm standing there holding
the broom that pushed âem and feeling
satiated âcept for the reflection
of my own shea buttered hands
offering up nipples the circumference
of a sunflowerâs heart
petals wilting
& there canât be nothinâ honey
...