Who, when they killed her husband, was carrying twin girls—not in her arms, but in an armless sea, with bits of blood as food. She covered
her daughters in the waters of her body. She covered her daughters in the rooms her body built, pressed against the wooden
floor of the Audubon Ballroom. She must have cried, as my mother did, when she stuttered, Twins? into the paper gown of the hospital room.
The body longs for its double. Even twins stretch long their arms toward other strangers. The first time I visited a mosque, I was surprised
to be separated from my father and brothers. I sat, with the women and girls, alone. From across the aisle, I stared at the men
longingly. As a child, I asked my preschool teacher why I couldn't play outside, shirtless like the boys. It was a hot day. Before she could answer,
I relented, wearing my favorite undershirt—the one with Archie, Betty, and Veronica—chasing my sun-kissed brothers across the playground.
Lately, when I glimpse my nakedness in the half mirror above the bathroom sink, I'm looking at the photograph of Pauline Lumumba baring
her breasts as a sign of mourning. The widow's breasts and mine hang like four weeping eyes, without titillation, fertility, or innocence.
I wanted to write a poem for Betty Shabazz because her high cheekbones and luminous eyes are like a BaKongo mask breathed
into with life. After her husband's lifeless body was wrapped in white linen and covered by the words: what we place in the ground
is no more now a man—but a seed—she took one last look at him who had smiled at her and touched, countless times, her unveiled face.
My mother did not wear a veil on her wedding day. Eighteen years after their divorce, my father fidgets with the gold band she slid along his finger.
As she made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, shimmying the ring over my father's knuckle, which words did her mind circle over: worse or better
death or death? That night, did my mother bunch the hotel bedsheet in one hand like a nosegay? Did she allow it—another white dress—to drag,
crumpled, behind her? The vows we promise one another are veils through which we envision the future; we enact our dreams using a vision
clouded by tulle and lace. Grief-stricken, Betty Shabazz said of her husband's assassination, Well, it finally happened. Weeks prior, she had taken to wearing
her husband's hat for comfort and continued to do so after he died. I want a desire that could be mistaken for grief to cloud my face, to make me shudder, to twist
my mouth into a cry. Once, I shared a bed with a man who, as a boy, heard his parents' lovemaking. I was confused, he admitted, it sounded like they were in pain.
Grief is the bride of every good thing, Betty Shabazz reminds me. I'm wearing a veil the shape of a waterfall, which is also the shape of my mother's dress falling
from her shoulders. Through its fabric, l can see a cloud turning into a horse and a plane that could be a star— a star that might be a planet. It's hard to tell from here,
wrapped in the caul of the present, fixed on this plot of grass, with so many seeds buried underground, and winter—forged into a circle—threatening never to end.
"When you dive into these periodical collections....you see the way some were multiracial editorial collectives that came together to publish journals that reflected their vision of feminism, and also the ways that even all-white journal editors were reaching out and talking to different groups of women and women writers in order to craft a different vision of feminism that was not monocultural."
Resources for Supporting and Uplifting the Black Community
Black Voters Matter: "Our goal is to increase power in our communities. Effective votiing allows a community to determine its own destiny."
The Atlanta Solidarity Fund: "This bail fund in Atlanta is dedicated to those who have been arrested for protesting political injustice."
The Okra Project: "With the donations it receives, New York City-based The Okra Project fights food insecurity and 'pays black trans chefs to go into the homes of black trans people to cook them a healthy and home-cooked meal at absolutely no cost.' In addition, it provides free meal delivery to black trans people who are homeless or do not have adequate space in their homes for meal preparation by a chef."
Poetry Daily stands with the Black community. We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality. We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world. Black Lives Matter.
"It was not the first poem I loved but it was one which reshaped the foundations of what I thought poetry could be—abstract elliptical essay, sensuous discourse on aesthetic form, history, and a strange kind of oblique confession all woven together into a sprawling imagistic song."
