Mindworks Publishing
Copyright © 2019 by Mindworks Publishing
Published by Mindworks Publishing,
Missouri City, TX 77489
Cover Design: Mindworks Publishing; Photograph by Gabriel Bucataru, Stocksy.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Mindworks Publishing.
In These Black Hands
By
Salisa Lynne Grant
For Myles
“I am a black woman
the music of my song
some sweet arpeggio of tears
is written in a minor key
and I
can be heard humming in the night
Can be heard
humming
in the night”
—Mari Evans
Acknowledgements
This collection is dedicated to my son Myles. He was and is my greatest creation. His life and loss have propelled me to keep the promises that I made to him as well as the promises that I have made to myself. This collection is one of those promises. To the people who raised me, my mother Denise, my sister Lucreshia, and my brother De’Lon, “thank you” could never capture what you have done. I am undeniably and willingly yours. I love you with intention. For molding me, for your laughter, for loving me on purpose, I am infinitely grateful. Thank you to my friends who have called me poet when I forgot myself, and called me family when I needed it. To the people who hold me up when the weight of grief has caused me to collapse: Fatima, Shirkira, Nina, Michael, Allison, and Kendra. Thank you for seeing me and not looking away. Thank you to my colleagues and professors at Howard University. Your care and challenges have forced me to grow in ways that I did not know to be possible. To Evan: thank you for loving me and for loving our son. You have carried me to the end of this world and back. This project would only be a dream if it were not for my incredible publisher Janette Grant who also happens to be my cousin. Our family is vast, we are spread across many miles, but Janette’s personal and professional support has been a light that will not dim. These people are proof of God’s love for me. The ability to know God’s love is the essence of a blessed life. I am so blessed. Lastly, to my people, Black lovers everywhere who smile in the face of fire. Thank you for teaching me what Black love is and what it can be.
Table of Contents
Part I
she called in her soul
Passing it On 1
she has always been all teeth 3
In These Black Hands 4
Fast5
Providences7
nebula 8
32310
Covered 12
In the Night for Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture 13
Dreams for Sister15
a too white moon17
Wrestling Our Symphonies 18
Tenderheaded 23
three feet25
Open Promise 27
she called in her soul 28
Part II
Black Lovings
Myles II 31
Storage 32
Equilibrium34
quiet story for Gene 35
Five Little Girls for Black Girls who cry in the Night 37
Make Believe 39
We Let Wonder Take Us 41
Before you stop loving 43
My People44
Myles III/Still Black 45
Pull46
Brown boy47
Night Surrounds Us 48
We On49
An Answered Prayer 51
Instead We Roam52
Black Lovings 53
Sunflower Monday55
How dare we laugh? 56
Together57
4 Hours in a Missouri Street for Michael Brown 58
Untitled59
Her Body, a Museum 62
About the Author
Part I
she called in her soul
“Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.”
—Zora Neale Hurston
Passing it On
She asked him,
“Where do the stars go in
the morning?”
And when he told her
they go inside of us,
she believed him.
Hugged herself tightly
and shined a blinding
smile in his direction.
“I can feel them in my fingers, my belly and
my nose.”
He nodded and pointed
upwards, then at her.
“We carry them within us, and when
we smile, they show.”
One day she will tell her children of their mother
who was born to laugh.
Stories will pass her tongue,
dancing on electric energy,
lips permanently formed into a stirring smile.
She will tell them of the times
she ran for her life, the purple nights that
turned violent, bodies dissolving, liquor that burned her chest and
made her brave. The times she was a stranger to fear.
Of the love, premature and premarital,
the love and reckless smoke that clouded her breath.
Of the times she imagined death, forgetting
its cousins-- hope, possibility, and future.
She will tell them of the fragmented bodies
she put back together, hearts and hands
egos and friendships, the
lives she saved, the trouble she caused and shared.
She might also tell them of the men who ran her wild
and made her crazy. The ones she refused to love,
and those who could never love her back.
She might, she will not remember everything,
but what she does, she will make theirs.
she has always been all teeth
she was taught to blend in early.
little girl with a colossal heart, beating
everybody’s drums. her smiles
slowly became forced.
“smile young lady, lemme see those teeth.”
eyes became weary. they stopped
dancing. instead they waited, they
were quiet. they fell soundlessly into
the shallowest pool. salty baby
girl blues.
she became
sorry by default. apologies in every
curl, her sense of touch grew
dull. growth, stunted.
she died and came back to haunt
her mother’s memories.
i remember the moment i decided i wasn’t
God. do you?
In These Black Hands
I would wake up in a small pool of velvet
wet
red
quickly drying
no pain, just damp,
just me, running across a clorox white pillow case
another pretty white thing ruined
a flutter of fear enters as I remember my mother’s fury
I can’t afford to buy new pillow cases every week little girl
but the butterflies settle as I remember hands
strong, sure, and brown
pushing my five year old head back to slow the
bleeding
her hands
running through a fresh relaxer
there is no hardness in these black hands
there is no anger in
her hands
there is only love, there is only me
they tell the story her mouth will not allow.
Where does the red come from?
Fast
When your body betrays you
and the sun takes interest
in your lilac skin.
Guiding big men’s eyes that
scratch through baby fat
leaving scars that
resemble grown
women.
No sweater thick enough.
Body bounces with each footfall. Each
stare, more painful
than the last.
Pupils cut like whiplash.
Her mind, acres away.
They
They catch every caterpillar stutter step, every butterfly sway.
They
They cannot help but call
her woman
call her fast.
They cannot help but call
her grown.
Every name except
her own.
Providences
surrounded, protected
water on all three sides
three coasts three
faces
shattered in laughter.
oceans in their own rights
bubbling beneath
choking death back
dancing into distance
they cannot escape.
mere tributaries, dependent on a temperamental
tide
land and sea converge where fault
lines, make threats as they fade
they are not pulled under, not
buried beneath an unforgiving beach
they are bruised, but breathing
submerged only in themselves, each other.
nebula
god placed one thousand galaxies between your two front teeth,
breathe,
exhale and ignite this city.
you,
are a living memory of play fights and fleeting moonlight.
of journeys north, then south
as each fluorescent footfall fostered flowers,
filled forests.
here, unwrap
a sandbox world, unprepared for your size,
for your dimpled brown thighs
your pull
with the sunrise.
smile,
and spray a love written in permanence across three counties.
dance,
raising clammy hands,
mahogany body spilling divine from distressed shorts and tops you cropped.
body yours, yours, yours
sweat yours
voice yours
name yours.
you,
a euphoric fog
a real black night sky.
you,
too much for small petty places
you,
hard to pronounce
etched lightly into door jambs and handles
when and where you enter.
you,
making them work, for your gaze.
you,
galaxy girl
you,
crochet braids swinging
you,
muddy middle fingers at the ready.
you, a firestorm of laughter,
you are the now, the then, the hereafter.
323
A yellow miracle made from
paint, glass, and plaster.
Home for seven years or so.
We moved every year before
and every year after.
The walls had the chance to
turn beige with stories, the
floors creaked with puberty, prayers, and
patience.
We grew out of our bedrooms,
legs wouldn’t fit any
longer.
Carpet knew too much and
backdoor was always slamming.
Telling the neighborhood our
best secrets.
In-home laundry room, built-in
spice racks.
A place to rest withered backs.
Even a hill for sledding.
Even a hill for sledding.
Covered
The floor sags under the weight.
One hundred years of memories
tied to my waist.
Forces me down, demands my
attention, compliance.
There is no point in resisting the pull.
Eyes forced open, mind override.
I cannot escape my grandfather’s
grimace, my great grandmother’s worry is worn around my neck,
I can still hear, the ring of my aunties’ laughter.
Swimming in it, legs swinging, heavy with
knowing.
Each time I try to give up, to
submerge myself in ourtheir past,
theirmy arms push me upthrough.
There will be no drowning today.
Ok.
I will float on. Watching my body
disappear
reappear.
Covered in their lives.
In the Night
for Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture
You are the sweetest darkness.
A sweeping glow of sugar barely
kissing reality.
I cannot see you in the night
but I hear your wings as they
cry for release.
You are seven broken
waters, two fallen angels feathers bent,
one wrist that no longer bleeds.
You are a forgotten heart
beat, fighting to be heard over the
screaming, crying of life's let downs.
You speak, letting us know that we are still here,
you take our lips in your palm
and massage our every syllable.
You give us back the words that
set us, free, you
love us on principle, no charge no cost.
No receipt.
With all the chest of a King and the
fire of a Knight, you.
You, man of no armor no fear,
you, endless syllable of love
and
insistence,
You are the only poem
that makes us sing.
Sing sing sing.
Dreams for Sister
Last night I dreamt
of your engagement.
Of a love for you so powerful,
it swept you and
your pain away for awhile.
Surrounded you
and pulled you close.
Every smile you have
ever longed for
floated to your face.
A thousand gentle stares
were placed in
your palms.
In that moment you
were free.
You did not need
to be strong, no
one snatched the luminescence from within
you.
I stood back but near, where
only you could see me. Where only your light
would reach.
I waited, until your moment paused and
you began to look for me.
I waited, until you were ready to
share it.
I did my best.
Your eyes found mine
and there was only an avalanche of love.
Only friendship.
Only the indigo rhapsody of
our childhood.
Sisters who God fastened firmly
to one another.
For better or for worse.
I awoke, alive and ablaze.
Plotting for your joy.
a too white moon
That sounds so divine.
Your eyes on me,
soft.
Hands too, eventually.
The smell of you resting in
my nose.
Pretend forever, we are pretending
forever.
Your pretty smile, a too white
moon against a dark sky. I am
ticking. Like my mother showed
me how to do.
Ready to bury you in my
rubble.
I am not angry.
There is no fire here.
When I explode,
you’ll know it.
I could never be divine, I am
all flesh and muscle, I am
nobody’s God but
I know how to grow.
I can sit still and braid an
army, a movement, a nation.
Wrestling Our Symphonies
I.
Tonight there is no one
but
the memory of your shoulders,
broad as the base of Mt. Hood
strong as the spirits that forced me west.
I remember your song, it still rings in my bones,
moves between me in damp Oregon evenings.
How many nights did we mix spirits without blending bodies?—
I remember the sweetness of your sorrow.
Your smells of patience and forgiveness
still linger in my laughter.
Your steadiness is here too,
In These Black Hands Page 1