My Grandfather's Portrait

grandfather

upright on the shelf,

polished

dust-less -

by care of his youngest girlchild.

Stern

and mustachioed

in a way that conceals

his lips,

any smile,

any semblance of a shiver

not that it would

ever quiver

Nor would he ever

shiver

Or shake

Feb 28, 2013

Tired

TIRED

            A 21^st century response to Fenton Johnson’s 1918 poem.

I am tired of expectations; I am tired of holding up somebody else’s made up roles.

Let me relax for a moment

And then

I’m gonna walk up to the city, turn my face up to the marquee and drink in the idea of a memory of the world that is supposed to be mine.

I will shake off the responsibility to make the cotton fields mean something more

Then uncuff my own shackles of making up for lost time

For the women who birthed me

And the men who kept me fed

I just wanna be in the city sipping gin with Zora, laughing about Tea Cakes we loved and fear to love. Crying with Nella about passing for something we ain’t but don’t haveta be to be…

Throw the future in the Hudson, sink it down with the past.

It is better to die than it is to grow up and find out that you are

colored

covered

molded

to be some stand in for a dream that was lynched on a sticky red poplar then            castrated and burned

Catch the shooting stars by their tails and connect the lines of the drinking gourd then follow it North until you are

no

longer

tired.

Resistance

Resistance

I was 12

With round framed glasses

Attempting to become my own version of Vanessa Huxtable

All straight A’s and one-liners.

I was sprawled out on the rug

My face in a book -

Goosebumps or Babysitters Club or something with a choose-your-own ending.

In the suburbs,

I’d never heard a gunshot

Never kept the oven door open for warmth.

And a bang on the door startled me

Even though we had a doorbell

(because why would they ring the bell if they could pound on the door)

They were

Looking for my brother

I remember smiling

Because not too long ago

It had been “people in your neighborhood day”

And I knew all about the good men in blue

Who would help me get home if I lost my mom at a street fair

Or could make sure men in vans didn’t follow me home from school

But they didn’t smile back

At 12 year old me

Or say please or thank you

When I said he wasn’t home

Even though I could hear WuTang blasting from his stereo

My first act of resistance

And as they made their way down the front steps

I swear I heard one oink

And saw the other’s pink spiraled tail twitch underneath his slacks.