NYU Black Renaissance Noire Volume 18 Issue 3 - Fall 2018 | Page 16

5.
Mom I have a son his name is David mom I am so in love with that little guy
Mom can I get in bed with
you 
Mom I don’t think I’m gonna make it
I held that ache inside thought it would kill me
Once I arrived in California I realized he had called three times
Mom thank you for your unconditional love and guidance you have always stood by me mama sista I
love you like no
sorry for your foryour lossssorry
your loss
Tonight I want to hold the rain
To be that small boy walking for the first time red shirt blue overalls
bald head three shiny new teeth
my twin brother comes to my window every night begging to be let in
I’ve seen his rage bloom stout trees between us
could not go to the site to bury the body
hold me
I fear I’ll never speak again
Finally they pry my lips apart hissing
“my mother bury she husband who fall from heart attack in de morning and my mother bury she second
chile, a son, who fall from heart attack dat evening my mother bury both ah dem next day and not one
time not one time she even ask the earth why” sorry for your loss -Fitzroy the cab driver who took me
to the ferry in Anguilla
With these tears I have made war sorrow a blue Angel crashing against my teeth grief is a dangerous
widow forgetting names of
To walk alone the deep side of river I think it’s
Monday are the neighbors here sorry
I have come to love Markers Mark honey when will the sun return three shots of whiskey
Age thirteen leaving Trinidad
nineteen sixty-four arriving alone to New York City my parents no longer speak to each other
dad takes me to the airport holds my hand mom lost somewhere in that hospital bed sorry
praise the
daughter in me and the brave son who carries my poetry praise him
5.
Cerulean blue color of Swazi Gods
After our son’s death
we poured colored sugar over our cereal to keep our love sweet
6.
My daughter-in-law and I bring our arms full of grief to Annie’s massage table
it is in a sweet cottage on the grounds of the lavish Coronado Hotel on the West Coast
where Marilyn Monroe filmed Some Like It Hot in 1958
You lay on Annie’s table soft eucalyptus and bergamot oils fill the room
Annie says let me shift your sorrow and mama just cry cry mama
outside pregnant women walk the beach with mothers sisters lovers
Once at the beach in Tobago we made paper boats sailed them
to God knows where
damn Malik I thought I’d have you forever
a chicken coop brood of children
you watch a one year old boy take his first steps he tumbles over with each half step he gets up
grins tumbles again his screeches fill the impossible length of ocean