Saturday Mournings
Those Saturday mournings
I pushed my bed
Away from the wall
Hoping my sister would not hear
Hoping my foster Momma would not hear
Hoping the old wood would
Not squeak or crackle too loud
and tell of my desire
Tell of my weakness
Tell of a little girl’s dream
To see her Mother
Tell of a Black girl’s longing
for White arms to be intertwined
with Black ones
Tell of brown eyes’
need to see hazel Irish ones
Tell of the truth
of how I could
Love You Mother
Still need you Mother
Even after
the give-away
the living away
the way irony played in your manic rage
on a Berkeley street
The day you said you needed
to find her
She, not me?
offering in my palm
my whole
Black heart
but she, the daughter you never saw
but needed, no less
The words still echo in my head
Replay each day
Who
wants this
Little girl?
Drunken Toes
Tap, tap, tapping
Desperado’s cadence
on run-over thongs
Who
Who wants this little girl?
Wrist burns
under drunken grip
“The trick,”
my sister said
“Is to stand the pain”
Twisting my wrist skin
In a game of Indian Chief
“When you can’t stand no more, you lose!
So you’ve got to howl like
an Indian, cuz you lost! ”
Child games flashing in my mind
but there is no time
to be a child again
and anymore
But maybe not forever
And there is no howl escaping my lips
Only the train
screamiiiing for me
And I want to be
on that caboose and go aaaaawayyyy
A lone Panthress
like the poster picture
fuzzy beneath my finger
on the basement wall
at foster home
opens Black bosom to me
“I’ll take her. I’ll take your Little Girl”
No howl escapes my lips
The fire of your red hair burns my eyes
as you slip into a sea
of people and traffic
and your battle dress jacket
slips into loud stares
of onlookers
The train howls our pain
Saturday mornings
I loved
the loving
to see you
Mother
Cried dry tears
when you did not show
pushed my bed
back to the window
My sister
and I
played Indian Chief
until pain was
only
a game...
and I
could be a child again