Notebook
I woke screaming again last night. I wish it was because of some stupid nightmare. It’s worse. The possibility of ending up like Mom, of having that sickness in me—it’s too much.
God, please don’t let insanity be
my inheritance.
SOLVED
No one at junior high
ever bothered me again.
I was safe, but terrified
of my own power.
Sometimes I’d look at my hands
like they were the craggy claws
of some monster
terrorizing a small town
in a horror movie,
and I’d shiver.
Pent-up anger
proved a dangerous thing,
and I could no longer allow it.
From that day forward,
if someone or something bothered me,
I voiced it on the spot.
No more messing around
with emotional dynamite.
Not for me.
JUNE 1964
Joy is in short supply.
God, don’t you see?
Past, present,
darkness everywhere,
sinking its gnarled roots
deeper into the world:
Mom’s mind,
Clark’s heart,
the white-hooded devils
setting the South on fire,
turning black men
into torches.
Freedom Summer exposes
this twisted sister
called America.
I press down my own pain,
cry instead for Chaney,
Goodman, Schwerner,
only they can’t hear me
or anyone
anymore.
COUNTEE CULLEN
Everyone has a nexus,
that place on the map
of your life where
who you were born to be
is clearly marked.
For me, that was
104 W. 136th Street—
the Countee Cullen Library
in Harlem.
I was thirteen
the year my father
signed me up
for my first reading,
a gathering of young poets,
though, as it turned out,
none was as young as me.
I was excited,
leading up to the day.
That all went away,
however,
the moment
my name was called.
I’m still not sure
how I stood.
My ashy legs,
thin as toothpicks,
were an earthquake
of movement,
and the fingers
that held my notebook
trembled like
an aftershock.
I stared at my hand
as if it didn’t
belong to me,
then looked to my father
for deliverance,
this being
his bright idea.
“I can’t do this,”
I whispered.
But my father
spoke away my fear
with a powerful incantation:
“You’ll do marvelously.
Just keep your eyes on me.”
And, like magic,
my breathing slowed,
and I rose
to the occasion,
reading my poem
in a clear voice,
my father’s faith
and loving gaze
holding me steady
as promised.
GRADUATION
Daddy’s uniform of choice
was black beret, sports coat,
white shirt, dark slacks
and baby-soft leather loafers.
only one other time
had I seen my father
in suit and tie,
and that was in
his wedding photo.
This let me know
my graduation
from Stitt Junior High
was important.
When my name was called
for special recognition
I looked toward my teacher
for explanation.
“Go on,” she whispered.
I inched my way to the stage,
swallowing hard with every step.
The principal handed me
a copper medal
engraved with
an old-fashioned feather pen
sticking out of an inkwell,
her way of telling me
to keep on writing.
It was the first time
I truly believed
it was possible to burst
from happiness.
Notebook
At the library on a Saturday, which is fine, but I’m supposed to be on my way to the planetarium with Daddy. Another no-show. Some excuse about a rehearsal that slipped his mind. He’s probably somewhere gambling. Whatever.
Last weekend, I got to see Carol. We were both visiting Daddy at the same time. She seems to be doing okay. She just moved into a bigger apartment. Now that she’s eighteen and officially a grown-up, she finally gets paid out in the open, and got the raise she asked for.
I told Sis about Convent, this church I’ve started going to. I met a girl there named Debra. She’s a junior usher and I’m in the junior choir. Something tells me we’re going to be good friends.
CONVENT AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH
Black churches
always have names
wide as broad-brimmed hats,
I don’t know why.
I liked that Convent
was relatively short.
My mother rarely attended.
Back then she was busy
studying the Torah
with her friends Scott and Ruby,
the only black Jews I knew.
I went to bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs,
and knew “Hava Nagila” by heart.
And don’t get me started on
the wonders of potato latkes, lox,
and pickled herring!
I didn’t pick up any Hebrew
or understand much
about being Jewish,
but frankly, any religion
that kept my mother
on the straight and narrow
was fine by me.
Convent reminded me warmly
of the Buchanans
and the church in Ossining
they took me to.
Once again, I found my place
in the choir.
Singing hymns brought me
close to God when he
seemed absent from
my everyday.
And through
my new friend Debra,
church brought me the family
I was missing.
For that alone,
it became easy for me to say,
“Hallelujah!”
A BREEZE
1.
Except for math,
high school started out a breeze.
In ninth grade, I came home excited,
though as a teenager, it was necessary
to feign nonchalance.
My English teacher, Mrs. Volcheck,
had marked my latest story A+
calling it “the best
thing she’d read
in a long time.”
As soon as Mom got in from work,
I planned to share the news,
forgetting for a moment
who my mother was.
The A+ barely garnered a grunt.
As for any interest in reading my story…
“You know,” she said, eyes firmly fixed
on the six o’clock news,
“Writers are a dime a dozen.”
And just like that—bam!—
she slammed my heart
in the door of her words.
When will I ever learn?
2.
I refused to let my mother
see me fight back tears.
She didn’t deserve to hurt me
and know it.
“I’m going to Deb’s,” I said,
and slipped out the door
before she could object.
I half-ran the few streets
between my building and hers,
then climbed the three flights
to Deb’s apartment,
cursing with every step.
It was Debra’s mother, Willie Mae,
who answered my knock at the door,
Bop, Debra’s tailless Manx cat
not far behind.
“Hi, honey,” said Debra’s mom.
“Hello, Mrs. Jackson.
Is Debra here?”
She cocked her head,
listened to more than my words.
“No, sweetie, but you come on in.”
When I hesitated, she grabbed my hand.
“What’s the matter, sugar?
Come sit down and tell me.” So I did.
To her credit, she never once
bad-mouthed my mother.
“Well,” she said,
“not all moms are the same.”
Bop meowed in agreement,
and rubbed up against my leg, purring
before padding from the room.
Willie Mae fell silent for a moment,
then looked deep into my eyes.
“You are a very talented young lady.
Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
Which, of course, was what I needed—
that and the blanket of love
Willie Mae wrapped around me
with her hugs.
REDIRECTED
There was always a two-ness
about my mother,
some shadow of a twin,
an alternate persona,
one forever at arm’s length,
the other not.
At times,
there was a flicker
of light in her,
a flame burning
bright enough
for me to feel the heat.
The flame would rise when
neighbors or co-workers
were in need.
She’d prepare
a hearty soup for them
from scratch
or bake a batch of cookies
to lift their spirits.
For such kindnesses,
that mother was beloved
by untold unfamiliar people
beyond our door.
On them, she lavished
the attention
I had once
been hungry for.
Oddly,
her redirected affections
made a certain kind of
sense to me.
Apparently,
my sister and I had made
the colossal mistake
of not being
strangers.
Notebook
Not much laughter these days.
I’m home alone; Mom’s back in Bellevue.
Damn it to hell! Sorry, Lord, but
it’s ridiculous! She’d be fine—
if she just kept taking her pills,
if she just stopped DRINKING.
Two things! That’s all she has to remember.
Why can’t she do that?
Why?
And once the doctors let her go,
she’ll want to start over again, you know,
move to some new where—
I’m not sure when.
Give me a hint, Lord.
IS THERE GOING TO BE AN END?
THE SOLID ROCK
Desperation drove me from bed some Sundays,
Through this world of toil and snares
hungry for the hymns that rocked me like a baby.
If I falter, Lord, who cares?
Off to Convent I went on a scavenger hunt for hope,
Who with me my burden shares?
and each week, I left with a sliver of it in my pocket,
None but thee, dear Lord, none but thee.
enough to brave the darkness at home, once again.
LET AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?
The holidays barely over,
February was bloody
with bombings in Vietnam,
which should have provided
more than enough hemoglobin
for anyone keeping record.
Yet, just yesterday,
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
slammed into eternity
when shots rang out
in the Audubon Ballroom,
a whistle away from
my sister’s apartment.
Winter weather
isn’t the only thing
keeping me
numb with cold.
I keep waiting for the world
to wake up wiser,
to choose life
over the grave.
MATH MADNESS
Algebra should be
ranked under
fatal diseases.
One more equation,
and I’ll die.
TERRA FIRMA
The poem I wrote
for earth science
was a good idea, I thought:
Silently,
in the hush of morning,
in the busy hum of day,
in the belly of night,
rocks, greedy for touch,
rub together beneath the soil,
shifting side to side,
waking the ground above.
Backyards ripple,
hills rumba and roll,
trees bend, break,
skyscrapers shimmy, shake,
riverbeds sway,
spilling waters every which way,
and roads split as if
pinking shears had snipped
the fabric of the earth
and ripped the rocks
that started it all.
After the shudder, a sigh,
and the ground grows still again,
pretending to be terra firma.
Until the next time.
Now who wouldn’t want
a poem like that?
My science teacher, apparently.
“I’ll need a proper report
on seismic activity tomorrow,
Miss Grimes,” he told me.
I didn’t say what I was thinking.
Profanity is frowned upon
in school.
Notebook
Last night, Daddy’s chamber group performed at Carnegie Hall, in a small room they rented. Carol was there too, right next to me.
We’d never seen Daddy dressed up in a tux, or seen him half as nervous. When he crossed the stage, clutching his violin, I could practical
ly feel him shaking. It made me think of that time at Countee Cullen Library, when I was the one doing the trembling. Now, it was my turn to give him courage, to hold him steady with a look of love.
SMALLS PARADISE
Summer brought a little piece
of nightclub heaven,
fine dining in a space
once sharing the same
rarefied air as the Cotton Club:
Smalls Paradise, the first hot spot
owned and operated by a black man—
a flashy footnote in the annals of jazz
I knew nothing of on the day when
my father and I crossed its threshold.
For me, it was the dimly lit musical shrine
I had begged Daddy to take me to so I could
sit at a dinner table that nearly kissed
the stage, and witness my sister shine
in her silk-gowned glory, singing
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,”
and bringing down the house.
Notebook
I went to my first art exhibit! It was by black painters my dad knew from reading The Liberator, like Tom Feelings and Leo Carty.
I’ve never seen anything like it, all those drawings and paintings of people tan and yellow and black as me, and every one of them, some kind of beautiful. I just kept staring and feeling—good, I guess. Daddy told me who each painting was by, but he mostly just watched me and smiled.
I think Tom Feelings was my favorite.
Black so beautiful,
beaming from
white paper,
white canvas,
paint gone wild
with color.
Who knew
we could glow
even
in the dark?
THE COPA
Going to the Copacabana
was never on my list of things to do.
I was too young
to understand the appeal.
But my father, sporting shirt and tie
for the occasion,
escorted me there
for a celebration
of the one and only
Lorraine Hansberry.
I’d never seen A Raisin in the Sun,
and couldn’t tell you
if the cast was present,
but I clearly recall hearing
the voice of Paul Robeson,
an actor and singer
I’d seen on TV and read about
in Ebony.
Riding up the elevator
on the way to the festivities,