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 none’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.

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, chile

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 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

blood promise

do i need the guts
the monthly promise
of my body to make a child
do i need it

do i need the hormone rush
the sweet stink of blood and shit
do i need it

do i need the water it brings
the pooling of my ankles, fingers
the exhalation of my belly
the soft stones that hold the tears i was afraid to shed
do i need them

do they make me an honest woman
productive
a disciple to my art

do the guts inform my work
spine the poems i write
apple my crushes
bless anything
but the waiting game
the promise of my body to make
a specific art
to create someone
that no one else can

but if the seed never comes
i mean, never
did i need all of this, all of these years
do i need them now, the specific guts

will a seed ever catch
like a crochet hook
and loop all of the questions
into one sweet girl, maybe
or do the guts slow my adventuring
for a making that may never come

how warm and dark and wooden brown

this morning
you sit with me behind you
close as a potter’s folded clay
your head falls on my shoulder

as i hold you
i think on the weight of our worlds
our africa, our plantation, our terrifying waltz with authority
through the ages

you shift your weight
asking for the touch of my hands
along the sweet country of your back
how smooth it is
how warm and dark and wooden brown

it is so hazy in my room
from lovemaking, from our sleep
that it seems as if your back should leave color on my fingertips
seems like i should taste more than your skin and stories

at this moment
i think on the legacy of our backs
how, as our ancestor’s children
they don’t  hold the ribbons and scars
the peculiar measure of obedience, of terror

it was so long ago
the modernists tell me
            when are you going to shake loose the story
            tears can’t clean your yesterdays

i think of all this
as i close my eyes
and hold you nearer than before
my cheek on your back
as if the places i touch you
can see into a yesterday
see into the brutality
and wish it’s stain away

i shift my weight
now it’s my smooth belly
the pillows of my breasts
heartbeat
and my head resting on your back
my hands around your waist
protecting you, it feels like

i know we are blessed
maybe it was the whisper of ancients
all around us that hazy morning

we, the lucky children
living the stories our ancestors could not speak

pink

       “…and spin myself a purse
       in which to sleep away the cold”                                  stanley kunitz

i have folded myself in
peering, parting the lips for a bit of day

look at me waving my pinky
at a pretty someone
licking honey from my fingertip

smell jasmine and sweet almond
when i kiss your cheek

touch me, i’m pink
i am a soft stone crumbling                

catch me

the crying game is over
put light there
keep the tonic pure

this is power
my body belongs to me again

there was a trade
but i severed the agreement

now i emerge
made new again
bones, strong
and limber, so limber

i see myself now
in the clean reflection
smell of seawater and wildflowers
my locks, a dark, dark brown
my hands and feet, capable and wide

i am new
beautiful, essential
in the morning
see everything shine

the hardest part about love

the fallen cross beneath my belly
is the most difficult part about love

i use eight fingers
to part the pink and brown
run one thumb across the slit
and begin
it is the opening
that is the hardest part
that is the hardest part about love

it is not fucking
fucking is easy
easy to forget tomorrow
and my last name
when a purple and brown dick
is rubbing the in of me
like a wet thumb on a djimbe
cumming and breathing together like that

the hardest part hides behind the space
before cumming and after the stories, the funk, the fat
and those bumps on my inner thigh
it is near that part

it is the part
forgetting my father’s face in my lap
the part that swallowed the promised wedding ring
that let a dreaded preacher in
who licked prayers into me
like he really meant it

it is the part that keeps my hands in back pockets
the day after i touch
cause i don’t want anyone to know

it is the hardest part
the nexus of nightmares
the power place
the daily news
the place where i cry
the place where i sleep
the color of lipstick
the itch on the bus
the squirm at meetings
the cough of a red, red blood
the place where i count lovers
the darkest hair on my body
my most sincere muscle
the sweet nutmeg sister that humps away memory
the brown bottom drawer where i store promises
the dimple at the foot of my bed

my brightest smile
my constellation of tears

it is the hardest part about love
the opening part
the trusting muscle
the metaphor of my story
the pink pocket of dreams 

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 mistral 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 soldja 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