Call Me Athena copyright © 2021 by Colby Cedar Smith. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.
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For my grandmother and her six great-grandchildren.
Mary
Detroit, Michigan
1934
Grief
consumes
like a brush fire.
It begins
with a glowing cinder.
You think
you can smother it
with your boot.
As you tap
and kick and stomp,
it spreads
across the grass.
Once the spark grows,
it has a will
of its own.
It changes everything
in its path.
All you can do
is stand there.
With a useless
bucket in your hands.
As you watch
the entire field
burn.
I wish
I could spin my body
so fast
it could rotate
the earth.
I wish
I could reverse
the months, the days,
the hours.
Go back
to the beginning.
I wish
it could have been
me.
Mary
Detroit, Michigan
1933
They say
twin souls
can communicate
without talking.
Marguerite and I
never stop.
Not even
when we’re asleep.
I put my head
next to hers.
I imagine her thoughts
traveling faster
than the speed of light
into my brain.
All the static
vanishes
and we become a radio
tuned to the same
frequency.
I wake to a swarm
of mosquitoes
tickling my cheek
and buzzing my ears.
I swat them
from the air.
You’re breathing on me.
I open one eye
and see her.
I’m still asleep.
So am I.
Good.
We close our eyes.
After a moment,
I feel a tickling on my cheek again.
Are you awake?
My sister is as warm
as a log on a fire.
She fuels me.
We walk down the hall
into the crowded
living room.
Shield our bodies
from our three
long-limbed
younger brothers,
who snap
and twist
against each other.
Cerberus,
the three-headed dog,
guarding the gates
of the underworld.
They look up
and greet us in unison,
Good morning!
before they rush us.
John puts me in a headlock
and tugs my braid.
Gus wrestles
Marguerite to the ground
while she kicks
herself free
until my dad
looks up
from his newspaper
and yells
STOP!
Or I’ll send you back
to the old country!
Sometimes
I wish he would.
Our apartment
is as small
as a rabbit den.
Just like rabbits
my parents keep adding
new babies
that take up space.
I look at my mother.
Hands over her eyes,
wondering
what to do
with her brood.
Her belly swells
with yet another
mouth to feed.
Why did my parents come to America?
If I had
a quarter
for every time
I asked this question,
I’d be richer
than Henry Ford.
Mama ladles the batter
for crêpes onto the pan
and turns it—just so.
With one flick
of her wrist,
she flips
the thin
golden pancake
onto the plate.
The first one there
gets the crêpe.
So you have to be fast.
My brother Jim
wins the prize
and slathers it
with strawberry preserves.
Rolls it and eats it.
All hot
and gooey.
Not me.
I just keep grabbing
and grabbing
and placing the crêpes
in my lap.
After breakfast,
I will hide them
in my drawers
underneath
my folded clothes.
It’s good to have
a crêpe on hand
when you need one.
And a few
for your sister
too.
My brother John
leans back.
His hands crossed
behind his neck.
His dirty boots
on the table.
Ρεμάλι! (Remáli!)
Slob!
My father cuffs him
on the back of the head
so hard
his teeth rattle.
Gold tokens
in a slot machine.
John sits up
and smirks
as if someone
has made a joke.
I half expect him
to spit gold coins
into his cupped hands
and scream, Jackpot!
Just to spite
the old man.
Mary!
I look at him sideways.
Yes, Baba?
I can’t remember
the last time
he addressed me.
Dimitris Nicolaides came to the shop.
He asked about you.
My mother’s eyebrows rise
as her lips form
into an “O.”
I can hear the silent,
O, Mary!
O, what luck!
She clasps her
hands together.
Her mind slowly opening
as she prepares
to make
my wedding bed.
A husband.
An old, rich, Greek
husband.
To put me
in my place.
Your eyes are the color of cultures clashing
she says,
as she kisses me between my lashes.
The dark brown
of the Greeks
mixed with the stormy gray
of northwestern France.
My eyes turn green
with anger.
Oh, Mary,
calm yourself.
You must
get used to the idea
of marriage.
Marguerite pats my hand.
Her eyes calm
as a fox.
Liquid pools
of the sweetest
amber.
My eyes glow
like a serpent.
The sixteen-year-old girls
in our town
are precious candies
waiting
in a crystal dish.
The boys
get to reach in,
choose
whichever treat
they want.
Marguerite
will be taken
by a man
from a good family.
She is sweet
and brings a smile
to your mouth.
When I talk,
boys look like
they’ve bitten
on something
bitter.
I imagine I’m pulling on a silk dress
with a feathered boa
and matching slippers.
Instead,
I squeeze into a wool dress
that is two sizes
too small.
The fabric
barely buttons across
my growing breasts.
I am filled with defeat
even before I arrive
at the battlefront.
School.
I tuck
mother’s rouge,
a secret,
into my pocket.
Secure my stockings
with hidden red ribbons
around my thighs.
A little color
just for me.
I try to fix my hair
never sleek
and kept.
A dark-brown,
wild, tickling
monster
that longs
for the inside
of my mouth.
I’ve always felt
a woman’s power
is in her hair.
The problem is
I have more of it
than most.
And I have no idea
how to tame it.
We climb down the stairs
pass through
our father’s store
and enter
the busy street.
Our neighborhood
smells like
trash
metal and oil
ammonia
slaughtered chickens
and roasted goat meat.
Folks
from Greece,
Romania, Poland, and Mexico,
and many Black families
who’ve come up from the South
inhabit
the row houses and duplexes
along our street.
Most of our neighbors
came to Detroit
paid his workers well.
$5 a day.
Word spread far and wide.
My mother says
I’ll never have to travel
to learn
the ways of the world.
The whole world lives in Detroit.
For twenty years
the factories fed
and nourished
every part of this town.
Food on the table.
Money in the schools.
Doctors for the sick.
Every morning
the citizens
walked in one direction
toward the factory floors.
The River Rouge.
Animals gathering
at the watering hole.
Detroit drank deep.
Sustenance.
Now,
water is scarce.
We pray the source
won’t run dry.
Marguerite and I hold hands
as we pass the lines.
Neighbors wait
in the courtyard
of the
Sacred Heart Church.
A nun
ladles soup
into wooden bowls.
The priest rips bread
and places it
into waiting mouths.
A woman stands
on a soapbox,
speaking so vehemently
spittle flicks
from her teeth.
I say to you, it is easier
for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle,
than a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of God! 1
It’s difficult to decide
where to look.
A town
of weathered tents
lines the streets.
Families living
in the dirt.
Women beg
for coins
with their children
on their laps.
Children
so thin
you can see their bones
through their
worn shirts
skin peeling
from sitting in the sun
teeth brown
from hunger.
A hollow-cheeked man sits
underneath a cloth banner
that reads,
Hoover’s poor farm.
He holds a cardboard sign
painted with angry words
about our last president.
Hard times are still Hoovering over us. 2
His son
stands beside him.
He bounces a ball
and chants,
Little Pig, Little Pig, let me in!
Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!
Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff
and I’ll blow your house in! 3
; Folks know
once you
find yourself
sitting on the road
in Hooverville, 4
it’s hard
to get back
on your
feet.
I hear a rumble behind us
I look up
to see a boy
my age.
Driving
a brand-new, red
Ford Cabriolet.
Through the open cab
I can see
his pinstriped suit.
He looks
as if he has never had
to worry.
Curly blond hair
bounces
as he speeds