Image Courtesy of litherland. Shared via a Creative Commons license.

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Black or Brown

You are Black, or maybe Brown. Your hair nappy. You’re youthful and poised; round nose, full lips and thighs as dense as a stack of twenty dollar bills. You sit on the stoop of a “new building” in the hood and read Baraka, Giovanni and sometimes Shakespeare. The older women pass and slip you a fist full of change telling you to buy an icee from the hairy man who doesn’t speak English. Then you grow up, and go “home” every weekend to wash your clothes and talk to your black, or maybe brown mum who calls you white. You tell her that Africa isn’t a state and the reason she doesn’t have wrinkles has nothing to do with placing limes on her eyes but it’s the melanin in her skin. You tell her white is a color and not a language, so you can’t talk “white”. You tell her Bill Clinton was not the first black president and yes you crush on Ben Stiller. Your mum gives you a plate of Coo Coo and flying fish. You appreciate the corn meal and okra parachuting down your throat. The clothes are clean so when you finish eating, you kiss your mum on her cheeks and tell her you’re leaving. She offers you a cigarette and questions your honesty when you tell her you quit. Then you notice her shameful tears slithering from the history of her eyes. She accuses you of ignorance but you hold her anyway and avoid describing your alienation in a world where you were never black or brown just a pariah. Not a Bajan or American, just a fatherless, baby mama without a home. You want to tell her the world never sang your song and the music you invented only lives inside of you, but you grab your laundry and kiss her reminding her you will be back next week. You get on the elevator, dig inside your purse and find your wallet, taking a fist full of change for the black, or maybe brown kids that will be sitting on the stoop…

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Sisters (for Melissa)

Two girls.
No pigtails,
or “what do you want to be when you grow up?” stories,
just grandma trembling,
with abandonment.
Two girls,
light/dark,
seasoned with dilemmas,
looking for love and pain, in New York City.
No pigtails,
grandma’s tears.
Abandoned.
Trembling.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

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Harlem

Harlem
raised me
no milk
or preschool
here
the eighties
with drugs
and music
and grandma staying up
all night
to talk to silhouettes,
tall, dark and ugly.
Harlem fathered me
mothered my anxiety
and without loving arms
and afternoon snacks
Harlem took my innocence
and left me
homeschooled
and remote
fragile
but sturdier
than my past.
Harlem stood beside
all I didn’t know
and got me familiar
with Avenue after Avenue
of relinquishment.
Smells of failure
and botched healings,
there were no recoveries,
no Brownstones,
no cream colored faces,
only disjointed
colored dreams
dying with the music
and drugs
and abandoned babies
left to be taken care of by grandmothers
who cried
missing their dark lovers/fighters
and misplaced daughters
who pierced the flesh
with white teeth
and ruined hands

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Kay Bell is a poet who is currently earning her MFA at The City College of New York. She lives in the South Bronx with her husband and two sons. She often says: “If it makes me cry, sweat or bleed it is worth writing about.”