Shake Loose My Skin (2 page)

and it was morning male in speech;
feminine in memory.

but i am speaking of everyday occurrences:
of days unrolling bandages for civilized wounds;
of gaudy women chanting rituals under a waterfall of stars;
of men freezing their sperms in diamond-studded wombs;
of children abandoned to a curfew of marble.

as morning is the same as nite death and life are one.

spring. settling down on you like
green dust. mother. ambushed by pain in
rooms bloated with a century of cancer.
yo/face a scattered cry from queequeg’s wooden bier.

mother. i call out to you
traveling up the congo. i am preparing a place for you:

nite made of female rain
i am ready to sing her song
prepare a place for her
she comes to you out of turquoise pain.

restring her eyes for me
restring her body for me
restring her peace for me

no longer full of pain, may she walk
bright with orange smiles, may she walk
as it was long ago, may she walk

abundant with lightning steps, may she walk
abundant with green trails, may she walk
abundant with rainbows, may she walk
as it was long ago, may she walk

at the center of death is birth.
in those days when amherst fertilized by
black myths, rerouted the nile.
you became the word. (shirley, graham, du bois
            you were the dance
      pyramidal sister.
you told us in what egypt our feet
were chained

you. trained in the world’s studio
painted the day with palaces
and before you marched the breath
of our ancestors.

      and yo/laughter passing
through a village of blacks
scattered the dead faces.

      and yo/voice lingering
like a shy goat fed our sad hungers.
and i. what Pennsylvania day was i sucking dry
while you stuttering a thousand cries
hung yo/breasts on pagodas?
and i. what dreams had i suspended
above our short order lives
when death showered you with bells.

call her back for me
bells. call back this memory
still fresh with cactus pain.

call her name again. bells.
shirley. graham. du bois
has died in china
and her death demands a capsizing of tides.

olokun.
^†

she is passing yo/way while

pilgrim waves whistle complaints to man

olokun.

a bearer of roots is walking inside
of you.

prepare the morning nets to receive her.

before her peace, i know no thirst because of her
behind her peace, i know beauty because of her
under her peace, i know no fear because of her
over her peace, i am wealthy because of her

death is coming. the whole world hears
the buffalo walk of death passing thru the
archway of new life.

the day is singing
the day is singing
he is singing in the mountains

the nite is singing
the nite is singing
she is singing in the earth

i am circling new boundaries
i have been trailing the ornamental
songs of death (life
a strong pine tree
dancing in the wind

i inhale the ancient black breath
cry for every dying (living
creature

come. let us ascend from the
middle of our breath
sacred rhythms
inhaling peace.

^*
for our mothers who gave us birth

^†
Goddess of the sea

Feeling tired that day, I came to the park with the children. I saw her as I rounded the corner, sitting old as stale beer on the bench, ruminating on some uneventful past. And I thought, “Hell. No rap from the roots today. I need the present. On this day. This Monday. This July day buckling me under her summer wings, I need more than old words for my body to squeeze into.”

I sat down at the far end of the bench, draping my legs over the edge, baring my back to time and time unwell spent. I screamed to the children to watch those curves threatening their youth as they rode their 10-speed bikes against midwestern rhythms.

I opened my book and began to write. They were coming again, those words insistent as his hands had been, pounding inside me, demanding their time and place. I relaxed as my hands moved across the paper like one possessed.

I wasn’t sure just what it was I heard. At first I thought it was one of the boys calling me so I kept on writing. They knew the routine by now. Emergencies demanded a presence. A facial confrontation. No long-distance screams across trees and space and other children’s screams. But the sound pierced the pages and I looked around, and there she was inching her bamboo-creased body toward my back, coughing a beaded sentence off her tongue.

“Guess you think I ain’t never loved, huh girl? Hee. Hee. Guess that what you be thinking, huh?”

I turned. Startled by her closeness and impropriety, I stuttered, “I, I, I, whhhaat dooooo you mean?”

“Hee. Hee. Guess you think I been old like this fo’ever, huh?” She leaned toward me, “Huh? I was so pretty that mens brought me breakfast in bed. Wouldn’t let me hardly do no work at all.”

“That’s nice ma’am. I’m glad to hear that.” I returned to my book. I didn’t want to hear about some ancient love that she carried inside her. I had to finish a review for the journal. I was already late. I hoped she would get the hint and just sit still. I looked at her out of the corner of my eyes.

“He could barely keep hisself in changing clothes. But he was pretty. My first husband looked like the sun. I used to say his name over and over again ‘til it hung from my ears like diamonds. Has you ever loved a pretty man, girl?”

I raised my eyes, determined to keep a distance from this woman disturbing my day.

“No ma’am. But I’ve seen many a pretty man. I don’t like them though cuz they keep their love up high in a linen closet and I’m too short to reach it.”

Her skin shook with laughter.

“Girl you gots some spunk about you after all. C’mon over here next to me. I wants to see yo’ eyes up close. You looks so uneven sittin’ over there.”

Did she say uneven? Did this old buddha splintering death say uneven? Couldn’t she see that I had one eye shorter than the other; that my breath was painted on porcelain; that one breast crocheted keloids under this white blouse?

I moved toward her though. I scooped up the years that had stripped me to the waist and moved toward her. And she called to me to come out, come out wherever you are young woman, playing hide and go seek with scarecrow men. I gathered myself up at the gateway of her confessionals.

“Do you know what it mean to love a pretty man, girl?” She crooned in my ear. “You always running behind a man like that girl while he cradles his privates. Ain’t no joy in a pretty yellow man, cuz he always out pleasurin’ and givin’ pleasure.”

I nodded my head as her words sailed in my ears. Here was the pulse of a woman whose black ass shook the world once.

She continued. “A woman crying all the time is pitiful. Pitiful I says. I wuz pitiful sitting by the window every night like a cow in the fields chewin’ on cud. I wanted to cry out, but not even God hisself could hear me. I tried to cry out til my mouth wuz split open at the throat. I ’spoze there is a time all womens has to visit the slaughter house. My visit lasted five years.”

Touching her hands, I felt the summer splintering in prayer; touching her hands, I felt my bones migrating in red noise. I asked, “When did you see the butterflies again?”

Her eyes wandered like quicksand over my face. Then she smiled, “Girl don’t you know yet that you don’t never give up on love? Don’t you know you has in you the pulse of winds? The noise of dragonflies?” Her eyes squinted close and she said, “One of them mornings he woke up callin’ me and I wuz gone. I wuz gone running with the moon over my shoulders. I looked no which way at all. I had inside me ’nough knives and spoons to cut/scoop out the night. I wuz a-tremblin’ as I met the morning’.”

She stirred in her 84-year-old memory. She stirred up her body as she talked. “They’s men and mens. Some good. Some bad. Some breathing death. Some breathing life. William wuz my beginnin’. I come to my second husband spittin’ metal and he just pick me up and fold me inside him. I wuz christen’ with his love.”

She began to hum. I didn’t recognize the song; it was a prayer. I leaned back and listened to her voice rustling like silk. I heard cathedrals and sonnets; I heard tents and revivals and a black woman spilling black juice among her ruins.

“We all gotta salute death one time or ’nother girl. Death be waitin’ outdoors trying to get inside. William died at his job. Death just turned ’round and snatched him right off the street.”

Her humming became the only sound in the park. Her voice moved across the bench like a mutilated child. And I cried. For myself. For this woman talkin’ about love. For all the women who have ever stretched their bodies out anticipating civilization and finding ruins.

The crashing of the bikes was anticlimactic. I jumped up, rushed toward the accident. Man. Little man. Where you bicycling to so very fast? Man. Second little man. Take it slow. It all passes so fast anyhow.

As I walked the boys and their bikes toward the bench, I smiled at this old woman waiting for our return.

“I want you to meet a great lady, boys.”

“Is she a writer, too, ma?”

“No honey. She’s a lady who has lived life instead of writing about it.”

“After we say hello can we ride a little while longer? Please!”

“Ok. But watch your manners now and your bones afterwards.”

“These are my sons, Ma’am.”

“How you do sons? I’m Mrs. Rosalie Johnson. Glad to meet you.”

The boys shook her hand and listened for a minute to her words. Then they rode off, spinning their wheels on a city neutral with pain.

As I stood watching them race the morning, Mrs. Johnson got up.

“Don’t go,” I cried. “You didn’t finish your story.”

“We’ll talk by-and-by. I comes out here almost every day. I sits here on the same bench every day. I’ll probably die sittin’ here one day. As good a place as any I ’magine.”

“May I hug you ma’am? You’ve helped me so much today. You’ve given me strength to keep on looking.”

“No. Don’t never go looking for love girl. Just wait. It’ll come. Like the rain fallin’ from the heaven, it’ll come. Just don’t never give up on love.”

We hugged; then she walked her 84-year-old walk down the street. A black woman. Echoing gold. Carrying couplets from the sky to crease the ground.

(after the Spanish)

forgive me if i laugh
you are so sure of love
you are so young
and i too old to learn of love.

the rain exploding
in the air is love
the grass excreting her
green wax is love
and stones remembering
past steps is love,
but you. you are too young
for love
and i too old.

once. what does it matter
when or who, i knew
of love.

i fixed my body
under his and went
to sleep in love
all trace of me
was wiped away

forgive me if i smile
young heiress of a naked dream
you are so young
and i too old to learn to love.

It had all started at the bank. She wuzn’t sure, but she thot it had. At that crowded bank where she had gone to clear up the mistaken notion that she wuz $300.00 overdrawn in her checking account.

Sandy had moved into that undersized/low expectation of niggahs/being able to save anything bank/meanly. She wuz tired of people charging her fo they own mistakes. She had seen it wid her own eyes, five checks: four fo $50 the other one fo $100 made out to an Anthony Smith. It wuz Winston’s signature. Her stomach jumped as she added and re-added the figures. Finally she dropped the pen and looked up at the business/suited/man sitten across from her wid crossed legs and eyes. And as she called him faggot in her mind, watermelon tears gathered round her big eyes and she just sat.

Someone had come for her at the bank. A friend of Winston’s helped her to his car. It wuz the wite/dude who followed Winston constantly wid his eyes. Begging eyes she had once called em, half in jest, half seriously. They wuz begging now, along wid his mouth, begging Sandy to talk. But she cudn’t. The words had gone away, gotten lost, drowned by the warm/april/rain dropping in on her as she watched the car move down the long/unbending/street. It was her first Spring in Indianapolis. She wondered if it wud be beautiful.

He wuz holding her. Crying in her ear. Loud cries, almost louder than the noise already turning in her head. Yeh. He sed between the cries that he had messed up the money. He had . . . he had . . . oh babee.
C’mon Sandy and talk. Talk to me. Help me, babee. Help me to tell you what I got to tell you for both our sakes.
He stretched her out on the green/oversized/couch that sat out from the wall like some displaced trailer waiting to be parked.

I’m hooked, he sed. I’m hooked again on stuff. It’s not like befo though when I wuz 17 and just beginning. This time it’s different. I mean it has to do now wid me and all my friends who are still on junk. You see I got out of the joint and looked around and saw those brothers who are my friends all still on the stuff and I cried inside. I cried long tears for some beautiful dudes who didn’t know how the man had ’em by they balls. Baby I felt so sorry for them and they wuz so turned around that one day over to Tony’s crib I got high wid ’em. That’s all babee. I know I shouldn’t have done that. You and the kids and all. But they wuz dudes I wuz in the joint wid. My brothers who wuz still unaware. I can git clean, babee. I mean, I don’t have a long jones. I ain’t been on it too long. I can kick now. Tomorrow. You just say it. Give me the word/sign that you understand, forgive me for being one big asshole and I’ll start kicking tomorrow. For you babee. I know I been laying some heavy stuff on you. Spending money we ain’t even got—I’ll git a job too next week—staying out all the time. Hitting you fo telling me the truth ’bout myself. My actions. Babee, it’s you I love in spite of my crazy actions. It’s you I love. Don’t nobody else mean to me what you do. It’s just that I been acting crazy but I know I can’t keep on keepin’ on this way and keep you and the children. Give me a whole lot of slack during this time and I can kick it, babee. I love you. You so good to me. The meanest thing that done ever happened to me. You the best thing that ever happened to me in all of my 38 years and I’ll take better care of you. Say something Sandy. Say you understand it all. Say you forgive me. At least that, babee.