Dear Rat Sister,
I remember a ditch of cattails, learning their names. How they rose by the bridge
of Interstate where blackbirds stayed. A scissor tailed flycatcher, once.
How soft pussywillow felt against my cheek, if winter’s realm. Of our father I
remember feathers he collected, drawer of jays. He wrote Sermons for a further
field than we could fly. & parishioners of crickets who hymned nightly
I remember—flood of frogs so deep they slept inside our knees & traffic just
a thread, loose at the hem. Oh yes, desire—
I remember, as a paper kite—so wind-wracked & unspooling the cord cut
my hands. Prayer skateboard-boys unravel my diamond from trees. Or else not
see & bother me, or fondle me—& so I turned a deeper shade breathing,
wore weeds, got so good at blending that you couldn’t tell me from a beer can
bobbing in a lake.
Dear Rat Sis,
Of the First Kitchen I remember every sweet. A crock of bread & butter pickles
on the floor, pimentos, sorghum in a tin big as our head on a high
shelf. Between our father’s firings where Poundings where parishioners stocked
cabinets with staples, flour & Lipton tea made so sugary it sent jolts
down my body. Apples or cheese could clean my teeth, our kindergarten teacher
taught. It’s how we learn to talk sweet—Borderlines. By wanting
things we couldn’t get, whatever was pre-packaged, then. Once my sisters got a
bag of chips & fought so hard for it the bag broke open over stairs.
They rained a thousand salted suns &
no adults to witness it—the simple way that Getting leaves a stinging in the eye
or heelprint in a sister’s chest, the bloody clump of hair stuck to that
manse’s banister. I don’t want to call it Beautiful, an oil sheen glittered up the
corners of my mouth.
Dear Rat Sis,
If I have a hymn it’s to the rappers of the Dirty South whose mouths shut up
the factories of Dove to make me hurt & laugh across the tracks
while stepping up their lablemates in lyrics, wearing drip. While I Deadheaded
in my jangled anklets pilgrimed down from Turkestan—Who wrote
their way out Gangsta Land, or Memphis as the case may be—their shotgun
rhymes rebuttling Neglect, who taught me Stasis is the Killing floor
where livestock meet an End of Days. From Abrams, Stace to Sheila Jackson
Lee, who broke the tongues of lesser orators whether they Won or
got rained on Again—who made Good Trouble asking Where the money is.
For Missy E. ballooning me outside of Oz in her jumpsuit to Mae
Jamison, who aced the Stars I never knew. I drew a lot. I shied from bees. I
let Megan Thee Stallion rock me to a Century so far beyond the
Bible I got told a host of Druids dissed my drawers, then left. This hymn’s for
Trina to GloRilla, Mia X as well as every femme who played the
FAMU marching Band in hats so tall they knocked the sun loose from its orbit
setting South Monroe aflame. & for grannies beatboxing before that
who scratched or shook the Sunday organs loose of keys—for all the Hambone
elders in the Juke Joints making hay from Mr. Death & before this
the girls who hummed & swayed dreaming of Back Talk—said it, did it, had a
knack for practicing twice as long as anyone & getting 40 Times as
Good at getting Freedom close to me as April’s Lightning to a Fire Escape.
