Wicked Enchantment

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Wicked Enchantment Page 3

by Wanda Coleman


  or the tall blond haired gold/bronze-muscled

  lifeguards who played with the little white ones but gawked

  at us like we were lepers

  sound. the water serpent’s breath: a depth as vast as my hatred

  skin. my chocolate coating. the rash gone now

  as a kid i couldn’t stand the drying effect water had

  coming out wet, cracked and sore all over. one time

  i caught a starfish, second summer after my divorce

  “i’m not into beaches, or riding waves these days.” the only time

  i like the beach is when it’s cold hostile and gray. i feel

  kin to it then. or at night. when it speaks a somber tongue

  only the enlightened perceive. when the ageless mouth joins

  mine. when soft arms caress in timeworn gentleness. or the

  poor man’s beach, where bodies echo my chromatic scheme

  from just-can-pass to pitch-tar-black. at home among fleshy

  rumps, tummys, thighs,

  breasts jiggling a freedom our hearts will never know

  sound. eternal splash. a depth as vast as my love

  beached. i turn into the blanket. urge him to fuck me. he

  thinks it’s corny. i get mad. i get up, stomp away, kicking

  the sand . . . while he was with her i was on

  the beach wishing he was with me . . . at the beach

  aware of his hands urgent to touch, take me before we

  return to work/our separate lives . . . here. i watch

  you swim into the crest. i’d rather sit and sip wine

  enjoy the wind than swim or wade. i smile secretly

  at thinly clad slappers-on of lotion/a potion to ward off

  skin cancer. in my fantasy i would challenge the ocean

  a feminist ahab stalking the great white whale. harpoon it

  and ride down down to meet davy jones, content

  for my america dies with me

  sound. swoosh swoosh the scythe. a depth as vast as my vision

  i could live by it, pacifica. learn to like it. now that you’re

  with me i might even let you teach me how to tread water

  I Live for My Car

  can’t let go of it. to live is to drive. to have it function

  smooth, flawless. to rise with morning and have it start

  i pray to the mechanic for heat again and air conditioning

  when i meet people i used to know i’m glad to see them until

  i remember what i’m driving and am afraid they’ll go outside and

  see me climb into that struggle buggy and laugh deep long loud

  i’ve become very proficient at keeping my car running. i

  visit service stations and repair shops often which is why

  i haven’t a coat to wear or nice clothes or enough money each

  month to pay the rent. i don’t like my car to be dirty. i spend

  saturday mornings scrubbing it down. i’ve promised it a new bumper

  and a paint job. luckily this year i was able to pay registration

  i dream that my car is transformed into a stylish

  convertible and i’m riding along happily beneath sun glasses

  the desert wind kissing my face my man beside me. we smile

  we are very beautiful. sometimes the dreams become nightmares

  i’m careening into an intersection the kids in the back seat scream

  “mama!” i mash down on the brake. the pedal goes to the floor

  i have frequent fantasies about running over people i don’t like

  with my car

  my car’s an absolute necessity in this city of cars where

  you come to know people best by how they maneuver on the freeway

  make lane changes or handle off-ramps. i’ve promised myself

  i will one day own a luxury model. it’ll be something

  i can leave my children. till then i’m on spark plugs and lug nuts

  keeping the one i have mobile. i live for it. can’t let go of it

  to drive is to live

  When My Time Comes

  i will speak to the night. it will listen

  words faint as breath

  a door thru which i escape/another world

  imagination carries me

  i am light, float/smoke/waft

  this dance on the killing floor of spirit

  light one candle and move on

  oboe my mouth turned inward

  dream i am possessed by the dream: arrival

  the fire

  my skin peels off, beneath it soft moist black earth

  mother the candle burns slow

  communicate? it’s hard to talk

  difficult to sculpt

  the flame gives off no warmth

  the many ways i spell hate on every empty wall

  when my time comes

  i will speak to the night

  it will rise

  and follow

  Doctor’s Report

  patient complains of social dysfunction related to color

  symptoms: homicidal/suicidal tendencies

  erratic episodes of deep depression

  chronic intermittent unemployment requiring outside financial

  assistance (beg, borrow, steal)

  past history: patient is a young black female divorcee with

  two children. she is alert and cooperative

  one moment and sullen and resentful the next. she states that

  the complaint which brings her here today is on-going since birth

  she also states she has seen other physicians in the past and

  although they agree that she “does have something” they were

  unable to determine its etiology

  examination: patient exhibits emotional instability, for

  example, crying and laughing at the same time

  other mood swing observed encompassed hope to anger; an

  insatiable hunger expressed by the patient as a “desire for freedom

  and power of self-determination.” this phenomenon has no

  apparent physiological source

  recommendation: institutionalization

  Giving Birth

  against bone. rubbing. pressure against bladder

  i pee and pee and pee

  and drink water and more water. never enough water

  it twists in my womb

  my belly a big brown bowl of jello quakes

  twenty pounds and climbing

  eat eat eat. milk. got to have ice cold milk

  vitamins and iron three times daily

  cocoa butter and hormone cream

  infanstethoscope

  sex sex sex. can’t get enough of that funky stuff

  bras getting too small. is that me in the mirror?

  it bucks/brings belches

  smooth skin. glossy hair. strong nails

  i’m 99% body. my brain has dissolved into

  headaches tears confusion

  my navel sticks out/eye of cyclops

  my life for an apple fritter

  snipping the elastic in panties, another pair ruined

  nausea. vomit. muscle strain

  ”they” tell you to eat fresh fruit and lots of

  vegetables. eating fresh fruit and lots of vegetables

  afraid of what it will/won’t be

  anxious. it’s got to look like him

  it’s got to look like me. be healthy. be live. be all right

  why doesn’t it hurry up and come

  read books. more books. know the tv program by heart

  fantasies about returning to slim

  the ass sleeps. tingles when wakened

  walking is hard. sitting is hard. sex, an effort

  he stands in lines for me

  thirty pounds and climbing

  people smile, are sympathetic

  will it be capricorn or aquarius?

  can’t drive.
too big to get behind the steering wheel

  ice cream cone jones

  (out of three hundred deliveries this year, ours

  is his third legitimate, says doc, “it’s what

  they are doing to the black community”)

  daily reports to the grandmothers

  is that me in the mirror?

  he worries. i worry. we worry together

  more hugs and affection

  i can’t reach my feet

  more calcium and iron

  wow. my gums are bleeding. scurvy?

  it rubs. twists. kicks. moves

  sex? it takes too much out of me

  the flu. food poisoning. cold

  too tight pants bite me

  preparation: pelvic spread. vaginal walls widen

  forty pounds and climbing

  showers. no more long hot luxury baths

  muumuus and mules. naked = relief

  his ear to my stomach to hear the heart beat

  emergency cookies

  it presses against my diaphragm. it’s hard to

  breathe. can’t sleep good. dreams

  more dreams. it’s a boy. it’s a girl

  backaches. swollen feet

  refrigerator lover, clandestine rendezvous at 2 AM

  advice from the experienced, questions from the barren

  the planets are lining up in scorpio

  suitcase packed and ready

  names for him. names for her

  (everybody-else-we-know-who’s-pregnant-is-having

  a-perfect-baby pressure)

  sex? oh yeah. used to be fun

  it turns. kicks. twists

  that’s me in the mirror, definitely

  why doesn’t it hurry up and come

  crying jags. throb of false labor

  will he be there

  when it’s time?

  My Love Brings Flowers

  a bouquet

  for all the reasons

  he does not have to give

  it’s material things make married so hard

  i make one chicken feed five

  make clothes ten years old fashionable

  rejuvenate one fake sable coat

  poverty endows one with magic

  (how to do without turns garden to weed)

  basil and blackthorn

  my voice i have no thing

  henbane and wild thyme

  i scrape bottom

  nettle and rye

  i sweep out dead dreams

  plum buds and tamaris

  i promise the kids

  moss and china asters

  i borrow from friends

  ivy yucca and wild rue

  dark empty arms

  money be as mad as you can afford

  poor demands be alert, on the dime, sane

  clumsy moment, a week’s pay gone. too heavy a foot

  $70 in brake repairs. a forgotten pill is $400

  to abort. soon they’ll corner the market on air

  i’ll gasp and curse my skin

  unable to breathe

  (ganja takes the stiff out, wine cuts the knot)

  he comes in with a bouquet of smiles

  i love him for the first time again

  down to dirty sheets and stinky socks

  down to unpaid bills and beans 4 times a week

  to the bone

  to the blood rose

  Felon

  my heart comes thru my skin

  they’ve snatched my kids

  if the police catch me home i’m sunk

  (when handcuffed the first and greatest itch

  is my nose)

  better find some place to spend the night

  the car

  sleep behind the wheel behind the

  apartment building in winter night cold

  doors locked

  i wake but the scream goes on

  can’t tell mama about this

  crimester. only crime i’m guilty of trying to

  play alice straight in crookedland

  money bitch. can’t get hold of it

  if the cops stop me it’s jail without bail

  drive. careful. one eye on the road

  one eye on the rear view. one eye on tomorrow

  help county hospital psycho ward

  the gay psychiatrist tells me “write a book”

  my employer saves my neck cuz it’s his wallet

  his attorney thinks i’m a cut above scum

  the foster mother smiles beneath her black bouffant wig

  and tells me my children are well behaved

  court the judge is black-robed and pleasant

  nods. extenuating circumstance (so rare to see

  a nigger here on somethin’ other than homicide dope

  prostitution rape robbery)

  yes

  the records are sealed

  they almost took me out this time

  provide he said. provide

  the condition of my release/getting them back

  in my custody

  i must provide (try to make a dollar outta 15¢)

  i will. with difficulty

  but i will

  ’Tis Morning Makes Mother a Killer

  mean

  the day grinds its way slowly into her back/a bad

  mattress stiffens her jaw

  it is the mindless banalities that pass as conversation

  between co-workers

  her paycheck spread too thin across the bread of

  weeks; too much gristle and bone and not enough

  blood

  meatless meals of beans and corn bread/nights

  in the electronic arms of the tube

  mean as a bear

  carrying groceries home in the rain in shoes

  twice resoled and feverish with flu

  it is the early dawn

  mocking her unfinished efforts; unpaid bills,

  unanswered letters, unironed clothes

  tracks

  of pain in her face left by time; the fickle high of it

  facing the mirror of black flesh

  mean as mean can

  pushed to the floor but max is not max enough

  no power/out of control/anxiety

  it is the sun illuminating cobwebs

  that strips her of her haunted beauty; reveals

  the hag at her desperate hour

  children beware

  Imagoes

  1

  white birds do not eat them (to get out

  they taste bitter or dry up

  here in this

  drops from the air. blood slag grey limbo)

  wings for casting spells

  crisp thin splashes of color

  ground up fine: juju

  a lover will speak true

  or

  cocoons in his food

  spirit of blood rush enters

  there will be many babies

  fat and cocoa happy

  wings spread

  against glass. wings. to be free

  wings on night

  wings against my face. my skin screams

  white birds do not eat them

  2

  phobia

  butterflies in the jar

  the child imprisons them. watches

  delights. colors. “they eat lettuce,” another

  child smiles, “put holes in the lid so they can breathe”

  in morning’s dew a burial

  she puts the tiny winged things amid green leaves

  3

  moths/souls of the unhappy dead

  (the dog chases them across the field

  stunned by the mad beating of black wings, retreats)

  4

  inside my stomach flutter winged dreams

  no future. baby ails. husband, eyes glazed high nods out

  children in heat/puberty/poverty. they want

  the walls stink. mildew. smudged dark dirty mirrors

  bruised flesh. s
he bleeds. dissatisfied

  vein/mouth opened up and spurting

  5

  in the dark room

  i listen to him undress

  pants drop to the floor

  he pulls back the sheets his

  cool touch my warm ready

  his hands to my waist

  inside i flower. he finds me. alights

  his proboscis uncoils

  deep into me

  sucks up

  6

  against my face the flutter

  what’s wrong

  there’s something in here. flying around

  it’s nothing

  i hear it

  go back to sleep

  i’m afraid

  keep still

  i felt it come at me

  a dream

  no. something real

  7

  (who comes to the sleeper in midnight city skin)

  cocaine lumin white it flits thru night

  feathered antennae

  cool air. caress the light/my body calls

  pain on return

  the steel cocoon

  carries me down slick streets

  on my way to the end of the line

  the door open

  my red skin

  great great grandmama walks the trail of tears

  the white powder

  carries me down silk sheets

  on my way to the end of the line

  my nose open

 

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