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My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter

Page 8

by Aja Monet


  he wrote his first suicide note,

  folded it into your breath and prayed

  you’d be the death of him.

  you bring out the fear in me,

  the fear of God’s eyelash.

  you give this living

  a life of loving left laying

  on the lie of this world,

  leaning.

  thank you for being

  so goddamned

  inexplicable

  for making me think about you

  so hard.

  i went to church today, and left

  two pills of advil for god.

  at the altar, i said a prayer for him,

  that he will not turn to narcotics

  or lonely nights of drinking wine

  in his empty room, or that a song

  won’t play on the radio

  or in heaven and remind him

  of when he was young

  and it was okay

  it was okay

  to make

  mistakes.

  unhurt

  hurt was here before we were

  someone you love will eventually disappoint you

  maybe even break your heart or hurt your feelings

  this will happen

  accept it

  sometimes repeatedly

  oftentimes

  repeatedly

  we will be hurt

  it will feel lonesome and sickening

  you will wonder

  what has gone mad

  in the world

  you will question

  everything

  beginning with yourself

  you may even wish you owned a rifle

  a knife

  a proper fist

  the perfect word to scar an inside

  but you will cry

  someone will hurt you

  today

  tomorrow

  the next day

  three years from now

  and you will

  love them

  one day

  you will love

  them

  for it

  this thing

  some twisted appreciation

  for the suffering.

  you only know love

  through the lens of neglect

  joy through the lens of pain

  it’s fascinating

  actually

  how we wound with our wounds

  and call it humanity

  the first time you hurt

  someone you love

  you will question

  the last time

  you tended an open wound

  you will vow to never do it again

  you may even pray

  to some god

  some yemaya

  some universe

  anyone listening for forgiveness.

  or the greatest death

  you will not care at all

  be prepared

  for a hurting is coming

  it will come and it will take you

  suddenly

  maybe you will be dancing

  or laughing

  or remembering

  maybe you won’t notice it at all

  and you will hurt yourself

  you will hurt yourself with all this

  hurt thought and you will love

  hurting

  and you will love

  no one really wants to hurt

  you will say

  no one really wants to hurt

  it will turn from blame

  to revelation.

  i don’t really want to hurt.

  and you will love

  did you know that?

  did you know you will love?

  never mind

  the who

  never mind

  the when

  it’s of no importance

  you will love and it will

  unhurt us all

  slow season in titusville

  early this morning,

  just after homemade coffee

  you drove me to playalinda beach

  with your right hand on my left knee

  and the other limp-wristed on the steering

  wheel, on our way from the bridge

  between the highway and the hammock trail,

  half of me soaring out the sunroof

  with my arms spread wide, pelican-like,

  open palms toward blue topaz,

  squinting at a blazed sun

  the wind against my breasts,

  hissing across my shoulders

  cheeks crumble into tugs and tears,

  the road was endless for our tires

  a rolled-out carpet of tar for our love

  the night before was but a blur

  you pulling your face away

  to the edge of the bed

  us bickering into each other

  we played like an ol’ Josh White tune

  coating mr. pirtle’s antique garage

  warm

  static

  full of bass

  like someone speaking

  close to you

  in a summertime pitch

  of piedmont blues.

  i say i love you

  a life in boxes

  rolls down the east coast

  like a greyhound cup of dice

  i bet on this

  each time

  you picked me up

  one time

  from the airport

  with a whole chicken

  seasoned in the trunk

  blooming red flowers

  in the cup holder

  a bottle of malbec

  at my feet

  a wine glass

  in the glove compartment

  gifts gathered

  as if i were some orisha crowning

  you would not tell me where we were

  going. i did not close my eyes often

  we crossed over a body of water and you set

  your grin on me like that, an open book

  of hymnals. i felt it in my toes.

  i was a symphony

  summoned by

  that much

  that’s how much

  a song i sing under my breath

  a hand i hold

  fearless and unspeakable

  i would journey the ends

  for this

  blindfolded

  cross my heart

  selah

  1.

  we were inevitable and since then

  inseparable. i fell for your eyes before

  i knew what your mouth could do. we

  wandered inside the looking, silence

  dozed in a gaze that spans a lifetime,

  a landscape of gazing. we reached

  morning together. desire outlived

  its moment and we touched a realm

  without touch or time. a bead of your

  sweat is, too, the dew that drips on

  foggy glass. the van on the road,

  i hurried to sit next to you. your

  body is an earth and my body, too.

  2.

  if you love like that to know what

  drives you mad, to reveal what in you

  aches, how you live in the heart, never

  mind judgment or what it tells. if you

  love like that. to honor what abhors

  us. to deserve beauty, we demand it,

  seek it in all unseen places. alive in

  what is unsaid. beauty is the absence

  of distraction or insecurity or judgment.

  beauty is resistance and love

  is survival. we need.

  3.

  it is a chill night in Bethlehem, we

  linger in cold air. interlocked arms,

  catching each other from slipping on

  icy stones. we are so close for warmth.

  near-sighted, i am singing with my shower

  voice. you
are the reed bed i call out to

  all of my days, i sung for you, longing

  to risk anything worth everything,

  with you, i am innocent of knowing.

  i want to feel myself love.

  4.

  what a word. how do you define

  a word that is so often laughed out

  of a room? without it, i’ve seen

  the strongest weep, bend, break

  5.

  the senses we shared, the many

  moments in between recollecting

  them, they happened to us as

  a biblical story might happen

  to God. it is poetry but hardly

  speaks for what words could never

  say. we live every song sung about

  this. we offer the world a new creation

  myth, one of our doing, selah.

  6.

  star street was humming in fog

  or our hearts breathing near

  each other was so loud the air

  became what we would not say

  or God is what was between

  and within, each laugh bloomed

  from you as if a body lifting

  the cold, i saw words stretch out

  of your throat. i wanted to brave

  your exhale shaking down the street.

  we laughed a holy laugh and filled

  an empty road with it

  7.

  and if we boil it down to the sheer

  coincidences of events that lead

  to now, the strayed chances of our

  first encounter, a fight for better

  lives leads one to love or a boy dies

  and a girl too. daring or defiant

  another dies and another, until it is all

  we know, another and another.

  every damn day is a coffin. were we

  numb we would not have journeyed

  toward justice or what was it? every step

  forward is a glance backward. is this

  freedom? fighting for it? each country

  we meet is a country of fighting.

  8.

  sometimes i fear when you walk out

  that door, you won’t come back.

  i worry we won’t see a wedding

  day or watch our children choose

  names to live up to or help our son

  lock his hair like his daddy does or

  how our daughter tells long-winded

  stories to be heard by you, just like

  her mama does. i try not to worry.

  i pray. i love hard. i say, let’s live

  a little, come home. i’ll wash

  the dishes, i’ll cook, i’ll clean,

  i’ll leave love notes on the mirror

  every day for you. i won’t ask for

  no future, if that’s askin too much. am i

  askin too much? don’t die. i’m here,

  fighting, too. every day.

  9.

  how many cuddles have we configured

  between these two bodies of ours? we

  twist ourselves and uncover heavenly

  nooks to nap within. a ceremony of our

  meditated nows. i love your body. i love

  my body when it is with your body.

  entangled, a vine of snug limbs.

  10.

  i just want to smoke a spliff in the open air

  with you, listen to frank ocean, write poems,

  jump into waves and recite psalms.

  mi vida

  for umi

  a fan winnowing from the wall purrs, swings back and forth. he lies between my legs after morning moans in the mirror. havana’s breath is on our bodies midday. he smells like the sweat of a rusted machete dripping cane in an old sugar mill. we tire easily del sol and nap in the nude, listening to calle de san lázaro sigh. the window above our bed is a seashell of chain-smokes. vintage buicks, fords, and chevrolets swim by, nostalgic for antes de la revolución, rickshaws babbling in exhaust. socialism sounds like a broken muffler beyond the pane. i twist his hair in the heat of june and oil the scalp with butter, the stubble on his cheek scratches my inner thigh, giggles on the lips. we kiss like children protest—naïve, defiant, serious play. my mouth dribbling along is, too, heading south, a foot soldier in the mountains. ideal terrain for rebellion, our bodies divided by deep river valleys and abrupt fault lines. these guajira hands tend to him like the meat of a coconut, dripping in milk, i caress the surrendering. sí, mi vida, sí. like that, nature convenes and all around, we are a temple of blues. sky, sea, and sand. many faces and reflections. our room is an island of fresh air. in defense of the earth, our bodies make love. we breathe in and exhale, sprung as if breezes from the bay, hushed above rickety floorboards. sí, mi vida, sí.

  la riad hammam

  two women bathe one another

  the eldest gestures her head back

  a tin pail pours fresh water

  squeezing a hand of hair, rinsing soapsuds,

  tiny bubbles dribble down her elbow

  another all belly and bump, carries her naked

  son on her hip out the sauna, glowing hot steam

  children tapping toes in the splash

  an elder kneads black soap, calves

  on wet stone, pampering, we swash

  cupfuls on heaving breasts, hair hushed

  between our legs, we are water beds

  holy in a maenad harem

  what of a woman with grooves

  what of washing

  a scarred lower back

  stretch marks

  the graffiti thighs

  of a goddess

  the ways of the many

  you rise a witch bleeding gently in morning

  fanning flies from fruit

  you slice an avocado open and spoon the pit out

  sprinkle sea salt and cayenne pepper

  put a pot to boil on the stove

  stuff sage and rosebud in a strainer

  your hair is messy, eye boogers in the corners

  you smell like a sleeping beauty who sweat

  her kinks out in the second coming

  like sticky dates in soiled hands

  olive and enchanted

  like bronzed blood panties

  washed and hung from a clothesline midafternoon

  you are a wildflower just after a thunderstorm

  guava juice dripping on a chin

  you are what is graceless

  hardly regal before noon

  daphne

  able hands

  snaps stems

  rinses vegetables

  chops and steams

  coils heat on

  an electric stove

  boils gently

  a tender

  temperature of torture

  gives quietly

  sifting oil on steel

  garlic and onion

  simmer the room

  morsels of soft yam

  eggplant, parsnip, kale

  candied, curried, and salted

  to taste

  the shape of ease

  we eat mouthfuls

  well fed

  she nurtures and asks

  nothing of tomorrow

  but today

  sipping wine,

  we mock our mirrors

  stare and play dress-up

  a sparkle here,

  a lip stain there

  a thousand ways

  to nourish

  a sister

  a portrait

  for carrie

  grace is a stretch you walk

  sitting or kneeling after a stroll,

  an exhale at a sanctuary of sounds

  the string, the harp, and woodwind quartet

  a rhythm section plays for you

  a cacophony cuddled in a chest

  arms or wings blazing a poetic field

  of tone, the forlorn sound of a trumpet

  a constant ref
rain of resist

  all daughters in movement

  the gods of grief

  a stream visited by wringing hands

  at the foot of thirst, a wild mare on wounded knee

  tending to self

  not knowing

  to accept or let go

  sister in the pews

  fanning, prayers, holding space

  a skirt tail between fingers

  overlooking, shedding

  whatever frets the eye

  tomorrow

  for the hip-hop shakespeare company

  yesterday i was the toa river

  where my grandmother rinsed her feet

  and cupped water in her hands

  toward her face

  dripping down her chin

  along, soft clay between her legs,

  sculpting a mother

  a body bathing in daybreak,

  bleeding beautiful

  the fish skirt around her calves

  dragonflies babble on her neck

  the sun sets her skin ablaze

  she howls toward the horizon

  tomorrow

  tomorrow

  tomorrow

  i will be a torch in my daughter’s throat.

  i will tire on her tongue and massacre a moon

  in her mouth, to mold a streetlamp from a stream into a star.

  she will speak soft as a sword

  severing the night

  a candle in a cave

  a flash in a tunnel

  the tracks to a train

  with no station.

  the color of milky way will ballroom

  dance in the battleship of her beauty

  violent as joy

  her laughter will roar of rivers i was

  tomorrow

  today

  yesterday

  i wrestle with the oars in my chest,

  hands dance dim in the dawn, a canoe in a creek.

  i watch my breath glimmer in the blur of distance,

  sought after, born in the twilight.

  i was a time between time.

  when humans owned humans,

  bones blew in the wind chime.

  my grandchildren swallow the sound of weeping words

  and wait for a witness,

  tomorrow

  tomorrow

  tomorrow

  i will be a raven in the breeze

  my feathers will caw above the heads of all my lovers

  tripping beneath. i was a first kiss lingering on the lower lip,

  tomorrow, i will be the last.

  men will study my jaw and wonder of the way

  we will the elements with our poems

  all of our yesterdays are beamy fools

  shivering in the sleep of safety, nearly dead, dying,

  life was but a walking shadow. i was but a hum.

  but i sung. i sung. i sung until a darkness vanished

  the dreamers won

  we woke to an ancient future

 

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