Tara Stringfellow
my ex-husband
loved me but in white
i spoke only negro
meaning i did not know fairy tale
saw it in movies, yes, but saw my daddy
spit on in a park in chicago
grimms negated
i can't speak white
though i tried lord knows
pressed brown hands to pale fingers
in some sign language morse code
palms screaming
dontchu remember africa?
why you treat your sistah?
forgive me
my granddaddy was strung up
on a poplar on poplar avenue in memphis
hanging there for weeks
all cause he applied for the police academy...
my love, i should've warned:
a black woman is no picnic
i spoke only negro
meaning i did not know fairy tale
saw it in movies, yes, but saw my daddy
spit on in a park in chicago
grimms negated
i can't speak white
though i tried lord knows
pressed brown hands to pale fingers
in some sign language morse code
palms screaming
dontchu remember africa?
why you treat your sistah?
forgive me
my granddaddy was strung up
on a poplar on poplar avenue in memphis
hanging there for weeks
all cause he applied for the police academy...
my love, i should've warned:
a black woman is no picnic
hot combs catfish crumbs and bad men
lent she'd send us out
come back with a basketful she'd call
my sister and i caught black tadpoles
with dark hands thrust into warm bogs
seeking, unafraid
my mother bent over cast iron skillet
read entrails in the hot oil
men will fail you more than the Lord
she swung a rosary over the stove
in a pendulum swinging north
my sister collected hair thick as a nest
from all the old combs in the house
buried it deep in red clay
daddy will come back she chanted
God can stay asleep
these women in my life are magic enuff
come back with a basketful she'd call
my sister and i caught black tadpoles
with dark hands thrust into warm bogs
seeking, unafraid
my mother bent over cast iron skillet
read entrails in the hot oil
men will fail you more than the Lord
she swung a rosary over the stove
in a pendulum swinging north
my sister collected hair thick as a nest
from all the old combs in the house
buried it deep in red clay
daddy will come back she chanted
God can stay asleep
these women in my life are magic enuff
in your life
i was eight when my mother filled with rage and jameson
crunched a love letter she found from my father's secretary in his suit pocket
and came at me screaming, lustful even in her delirium,
holding the pulp of paper like a warm heart in her hand
and through tears screamed dontchueva—held up the pulsing letter--
dothis toanuthawoman eva inyolife
she stumbled away defeated as job lost as joseph and left me for more liquor
i was thirty when i left my husband to be with no one in particular
which is much worse my mother screamed for the life of her
she could not understand why God bid her raise a selfish child
don’t pay mom no mind my sister says
sometimes you need a sister like a sailor needs a compass
mom prolly still achin over daddy
aren’t we all i ask
crunched a love letter she found from my father's secretary in his suit pocket
and came at me screaming, lustful even in her delirium,
holding the pulp of paper like a warm heart in her hand
and through tears screamed dontchueva—held up the pulsing letter--
dothis toanuthawoman eva inyolife
she stumbled away defeated as job lost as joseph and left me for more liquor
i was thirty when i left my husband to be with no one in particular
which is much worse my mother screamed for the life of her
she could not understand why God bid her raise a selfish child
don’t pay mom no mind my sister says
sometimes you need a sister like a sailor needs a compass
mom prolly still achin over daddy
aren’t we all i ask
only read from exodus
we've cradled enuff bodies of men we love
bleeding out onto uncaring streets
learned to roll my hair with funeral programs
climbed into sheets that may shroud my children
black rituals. emmit till was my peter rabbit.
my mama only read from exodus
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee
out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery
i wonder what most egyptians thought
when the jews cried with locusts and plagues
and blood that their lives mattered
my father pulls from a Kool not a damn thing he exhales
backing out the drive my mama comes running gasping
you'll need this she says unfolds one long pearl rosary
--
Tara Stringfellow is a poet and an attorney living in Chicago, originally from Memphis, Tennessee and Okinawa, Japan. Third World Press published her first collection of poetry entitled More than Dancing in 2008. Her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Transitions Magazine, Apogee Journal, decomp: a literary magazine, Voice and Vision: An African American Literary Magazine, and North by Northwestern. Currently, the author is an MFA Candidate for both poetry and prose at Northwestern University.
bleeding out onto uncaring streets
learned to roll my hair with funeral programs
climbed into sheets that may shroud my children
black rituals. emmit till was my peter rabbit.
my mama only read from exodus
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee
out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery
i wonder what most egyptians thought
when the jews cried with locusts and plagues
and blood that their lives mattered
my father pulls from a Kool not a damn thing he exhales
backing out the drive my mama comes running gasping
you'll need this she says unfolds one long pearl rosary
--
Tara Stringfellow is a poet and an attorney living in Chicago, originally from Memphis, Tennessee and Okinawa, Japan. Third World Press published her first collection of poetry entitled More than Dancing in 2008. Her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Transitions Magazine, Apogee Journal, decomp: a literary magazine, Voice and Vision: An African American Literary Magazine, and North by Northwestern. Currently, the author is an MFA Candidate for both poetry and prose at Northwestern University.