Imani Tolliver

these hands

my mother said my hair was like moss

difficult to comb

to keep into the pillow at the crown of my head

so she melted it fine

and pulled, pulled it free from itself

thousands of nooses without the knots

as the years went on

and i became more courageous

i cut the nooses free

gathered and twisted and curled and colored the knots

the forbidden, the embarrassing

the backdoor, the kitchen

into sun, agate, dark rum, fizzy mexican coca cola

and north african oil with herbs at the bottom of wide, dolloped vases

warm glass, beginning as teardrops

fallen now, have been the colors of my hair

i took the stories that made me

out of the scream of my arrival

the vinyl and chrome couch of 1977

in front of the 6 million dollar man

and the bad news bears on tv

the girl, the mushroom, tiny, hiding

hooded small thing that i was

touched i was, in the worst ways

eating tears, eating doughnuts,

eating anything sweet that would fill me

into someone larger than i could imagine

into someone strong

into backbone and healer

into the visitor who,

if you were not looking

would tell you all about yourself and herself too

into this soft body without children

except the one she holds close between my breasts

that i screamed into making

scream from between the lips that suffered

from between the lips that would not speak

the lips tasted by the lips

that would taste hers

scream, scream, scream

wide open

now, these lips curved, plentiful, fleshy and pink

tell and tell and tell

because they were told to shut up long ago

the voice box

the brown and red voice box held in this neck

that came from two brown necks

and two before that

was called a white girl

an oreo

            who you trying to be, anyway?

they told me the color of my voice

before i was able to get my bearings

before i knew the language to fight back

they told me that i was far away from them

far from who i thought i was

white girl

white girl

            you trying’ to be a white girl

but all i knew was my mother’s tongue

all i knew came from the alice in wonderland records

that taught me how to read

i tried to abandon

natural geographics and dictionaries

pippi and the mysteries and the magazines

for a language that was more acceptable

but my mother tongue, i could not shake

it was a tattoo that i modified but never abandoned

so i read aloud

listening to the nuances i created

the resonance that burnishes the girl voice

tobacco and time

rum and crying

into this voice you hear now

with it’s gravel lows and birdlike highs

that sings when no one’s looking

to jesus and lovers i trust

i am looking below my knees now

and there are scars

but i have decided

to turn the clusters and stripes

into constellations

into galaxies

i will have the scars, the stars

make an order

something larger than me or my shins

into orion, zeus, mars and leo

so take what shame tried to make

into your hands and turn it into something else

change your color

to pink, to blue, to black

to your wish

into something new

something of your own making

perhaps you will be as lucky as i

when a new friend remarks to your mother

            you gave birth to imani?

no, she gave birth to herself.



the fire this time.  remembering april 1992

i remember saying

boo

to a volvo on the westside

filled with frightened white faces

who was i to be afraid of, anyway

a 20 something, veggie, westside girl

fighting the good fight of inclusion and voice

at a predominately white community college by the beach

where my best friends sold jewelry and fell in love

boo

and i became their worst fear

and what must that fear look like

a skirt made of watermelon rinds

my face blackened with coal

each braid secured with tiny little white bows

my head tilted to one questioning angle

uga, booga, booga boo

and i am the minstrel show

the kill whitey nightmares are made of

the organizing, uppity type

the well read new negro with all the answers

a revolution over my right shoulder

an army of fatigued nappy babies in black berets to my left

and my man, my king

festooned in armory of red, black and green

kwanzaa baskets rimming with fruit and ears of corn

habari gani, my sister

as my brown fist eclipses all traces of light

i am none of those things

you won’t find me hiding underneath a yard of fabric

with charcoaled eyes waiting for my turn to speak

you won’t find me

yelling sister soujah style

getting my point across with a reverberating mic

at a rally somewhere downtown

let me explain:

i know what it’s like to be called nigger

to favor the fairer without knowing why

to fold my lips inward, suck them smaller than they are

i remember fresh permanent relaxers

and leaving the salon

a southland breeze feathering all the shiny, scabbed crown of me

as i got in the car and sang songs on the wrong side of the f.m. dial

remembering the anorexic, ditto and candies clad white girls of hale jr. high

who taught me how to hate my body

see this rage comes from somewhere

i remember finding out about the harlem renaissance

at a bookstore on the westside

all big and glossy

like, of course you know about these painters and posers for james van der zee

of course you marveled at the way he captured light on smoke and bourgeois ladies

how he made up allegories with children superimposed in wedding portraits

and angels in still-lifes of the dead

there is a scream that occurs when you are left out of something

a dying happens

to blacks who don’t want you to acknowledge them at a westside gathering

the dread who favors the white girls

the way candy favors sweet

i mean without one, there is no other

there is a place where silence comes from

i remember tanks on palms boulevard

counting the flame twisters of south central

the day we learned our lives were cheaper than we suspected

all i wanted to do

was to make sure my brother was safe

and that my mama got home from the valley

that we were together

that we could survive this

praying that it would pass

and hearing over and over

that quote from a place i have forgotten

            you know you will be ready for a revolution

            when you are ready to eat rats

the grocery store on the corner

sold out of every bag of bread and gallon of milk

we watched newscasters all us names, finding a place for their rage

we watched interviewers on tv

asking the poor why they were taking baby formula and diapers

from abandoned markets

i suppose i never felt so small

so silent

because i wasn’t ready for no bloody revolution

wasn’t ready to eat rats

and the fist i held up on la brea and wilshire that first night

was to protect myself from a brother standing in the middle of the street

looking for a place to put his bullets, his rage

i do what i am supposed to

learn to look beyond the signifiers of class and color

understand that beyond every revolution

is another story, another oppression

one summer in south central on a schoolyard

i noticed that everyone was brown

each african, cambodian, chicano child

looked a bit like me

i couldn’t make out their races as they played

and i realized that we shared something that i couldn’t exactly name

it is that same feeling i get

when my friend jeff

writes an enlightened poem

about the violation of white privilege

and owns his own peculiar benefit dolled by the slave trade, centuries ago

it will be impossible to pay the debt

to rub smooth the relief of slavery from our backs

there may always be a time

when we favor our hair as smooth and glassy as michael jackson’s

look at the toll colonization and self-hatred has taken on his face

i believe in love

and i will believe in it

until i am gone

until my scars are ash

and i am the sum of my journals

besides

how are you gonna hold hands with anyone

with your fists all balled up like that





kind of blue

pearl is mad at miles

told everybody her business

by telling his

how can we make love

to the keys, the fingers that pushed out

the sweet melody

that beat the kink

right outta cicely’s neck

what happened to the oiled cotton courageous

and who did she become

oddly silent

her story the darker greek we’ve sung

we are not supposed to forgive miles

for what he did

supposed to give away

his music to the tolerant masses

who don’t mind the irony of this antihero

the sneer that looks as if

it holds a limerick

holds a lullaby instead

coaxing lovers to open

soften and croon

pearl says we should never

forgive miles

says keep him at the gates, like tantalus

begging peter forever

wishing the keys from his hands

but i think i can forgive him

forgive him like i do my daddy

a little every day

his hands did not always hurt

did not always push

no

mostly, they carried

soil, pipe tobacco and matches

ink from fountain pens

type for the books he’d set

old books sold with mama

brother from the hospital

tears when his father died

maybe pearl does not know

that love from daughters is complicated

that without forgiveness

there is nothing left

no memory that is not stuck to his face

a garden

a record under the hi-fi

sketches of spain,

my father had

see, if i don’t forgive daddy

then i miss all of miles

all the sticky croon

the warm silver tones that give

the slow flicker of low light on water

both my daddy and miles are gone now

but they probably too cool

to hang out with each other

as i pull out old photos

of my father kneeling with eggplants

i pull another tune from the anthology that is miles

the puzzle of love these men lived

i keep them in just enough light

to keep their shape, but not their color

a kind of blue

easy

                                                            "your hand is full of hours"

paul celan

i follow the metronome of your whistle

the laugh you click behind your teeth

sounds like a bird

a call to come closer

you run circles around me

slow ones

so slow that i don’t notice you near

until you are closer

than what is polite

is it the fig you promise

when you look at me like that

is it the years of letters

the subtle promises to love one another

the eyes behind your eyes

warm to me

study my shape

and imagine it too

are you pretty there     yes

will you show me        yes

you might surprise me

might be aggressive and limber

might hold me hard

might slip fingers into the wet

and drum

until the air sucks in fast

the hand behind the hand

draws lines

make sharp straight turns

i pinch out stories

from the spaces you leave

the lip behind the lip

has kissed me already

and i collect the movement of you

pressing me nearly open

easy

like the pink dawn of mountains

slow stain of the sun

in a foreign tongue the poet lies, paul celan

i claim this language is my own

this use of nouns, verbs and phrases

but it is not the one i have always wanted

never the ease of the american black tongue

always to study it

i wish my mouth

was not a cage

or a  passport

visitor, always visitor

this new negro tongue

unrolls into a host of invitations across the river

ambassador to the race of pretty brown children

children i kiss always on the anacostia train

across the bridge

to the homes of senators

white girls

and lost men asking for change

when it is time to come home

a token deposited on the green line

my full lips, these pretty naps and bag filled with brown books

says come in, welcome

when i open my mouth to give thanks, my mother taught me this too

their round faces curve into question marks, accusations

a betrayal blossoms

color of  linen, color of common orchids

she is like them

she is not one of us

i am oceans away from my real mother tongue

and a stone’s throw from my own backyard

in this house

i speak the language that was given to me

bleeding privileges

i never asked for

leaving me weeping

at the unopened doors

of the america that is supposed to be mine



defending frida

people ask me
what the big deal is
with frida

saw the movie, but i don’t get it
what was the war they were fighting back then

communism
the classes

her back
her baby in ribbons
diego’s dick divining the wet and pretty
gangrene
tobacco
liquor
love

i don’t know why she is popular with other people but i will tell you why i love frida

despite a famous husband she, supportive in a rebozo and garden flowers in her hair,

painted
despite the judas body,

she painted

the body that cut their son in pieces, no glory
just pieces of a boy
and still she painted

her diego
found the flesh of women irresistible
as did she
the sweet of it
irresistible

i wonder what touching frida would be like
if you were her lover
would you caution the seams
the cut and sewn parts
would she hold the meat of you
in the same mouth warmed by posole, chili

would her lick be soft as a sliver of flan
with caramel at the tip
or would you have to coax the sweet
peel back the bristle
like the brutal, but succulent agave
to find the tender meat waiting
supple, warm
becoming the taste of what tastes it
i have so much to judge myself by
how much i exercise
what i weigh
whether i eat meat, enough vegetables
were they organic
were they justly farmed
did i keep my tongue in heaven today
am i telling the truth

am i being responsible

authentic

true

i never knew frida
but her paintings follow me
they come as cards, trinkets
from women, always
from my mother, mostly

and the jewelry
the paintings
the tiny altars
the boxes and books

tell me
speak
you must speak
cough the ribbons of your tongue free
lick the flesh that calls you
ink your fingertips when you cannot find a brush
find walls when canvas is not nearby
love hard and mighty
put flowers in your hair
the big, gorgeous ones from your garden
wear the colors of your own flag
create when baffled
create when sorrowful. afraid. brave. brilliant.

abandon the prickle of fear
and be of your own making
begin from deep, deep
feel the tremor
the push, the work root
the quaking blossom
of who you really are

let light
let you
be free