a sip or a spoonful won't do

He hit her in the back of the head. Truth—finds its own coarse measure. Not long out of diapers I wore purple hot pants and danced a funky chicken. There was the boogaloo, and my aunt’s red wig that went over her hair. I knew men, even then. I had uncles. And a father. We jumped high in the living room, our lives a quick-step. When I held her in my arms, did I do any good? She was hip, too cool, a Saturday night cigarette, a bone-handled pistol in the panty drawer. Say it louder—I was proud. I held my head up high with my Sally-legged aunt, I kicked my heels and my uncle laughed. He had a western name. This was Texas, a man’s world, but women raised men out of cotton, out of dust. Bred long-horns and bullshit. She could shoot, but she didn’t. She said, “Sing it baby.” Please, please—I got down on my knees and cradled her son’s head in my small arms. Out of memory the thread of truth. A red daisy chain. Blood running down a back. He hit her again. I was wearing my purple hot pants, ones that matched hers. Or I was in my pajamas holding my cousin’s head in my arms, covering his eyes, his mouth, with my flat chest, my fingers in his hair, red as his mother’s. Coarse. As in unrefined. She wore a wig that fell off her head. He screamed, “Fat bitch,” she screamed, “Don’t go,” and let her pony legs go to sticks, thin as a blue-bonnet stem. Texas flower, weed. When I held her in my arms it did no good. When my mother held her in her arms, she did not come back. I said, “Don’t go,” she said, “I’m black—” I sang, “Say it loud,” he said, “Black bitch.” It was a boogaloo, it had been danced before. My uncle laughed his laugh. It fell like a wig to the floor. He threw back his head, conked, slick as the blade of a razor. I’m saying it. Loud, the way truth comes out when it’s been held to your chest, like a little boy’s cries, a boy who will grow into his father’s shoes. Dance of generations. Cotton-eyed marshalls. Green-eyed brown men. She said, “You can’t trust men like that.” Turned me around, said, “Do your dance girl, sing that song.” She could shoot, but didn’t. Someone else did. I’m saying, in a bar, ten years and miles up the road he fell, like a wig hitting the floor. Juke joint. Gin-stomp. James Brown always spinning. Somebody always hitting the floor. He was big stuff in a slim suit. Cool as Saturday night he fell. Hair flawlessly coiled.

And death is the reason to begin again, without letting go.
                                                                         —Jay Wright


About longing and lament
of a night when a limphearted moon
leaks through this humid air…

And you on the dressing table
in little sister’s room
little sister who like you
neither knows nor remembers
any glamour or youth or exile
and your eye piercing
follows every move we make
like an eternal sentinel

Your death was an end of death
and here we begin again

My sister forgive us
our demand for the improbable
our longing for your presence here right now
though what happened on that treacherous road
and day we know
Forgive us
for right now
it is not you
but us
shrouded in gloom

My sister
I could not come to see
what remained of you
even if I dared
I couldn’t whiskey my way out of your eye
any more than I could jump out of my skin
even on the sixth day
after that treacherous Saturday
that whisked you away from us
I could not come to see
what remained of you

Your spectre patrols my restless moments
when I know I should be slitting fascist throats
or poeting your determined purpose
but I bounce to impotence like a check
foreign to you in your fashioning our future
I could not even whiskey my way out of your eye
any more than I could jump out of my skin

Not that it would have made a difference
had your hasty death on the Morogoro road been foretold
that was what you had to do
clearly as a philosophical choice
a meeting, though at most of them
there is not much more than platitude or pretension,
clothes for the children, though to this day
most remain as naked as their young souls

So now you are gone
You had to take a final road
not chosen by you
and finally I came
and I looked
and I was chilled to numbness
a mouth full of cottonwool
where your weighted smile used to be
body all shrouded and deathly still
no missile from your tongue or eye
which always demanded what and why
Later I wished for rain
to come smother my impotent tears
Baba said
only the pillow knows the tears of a man

Now like my sister’s embrace
across the treacherous waters and centuries
I want to put my mouth on paper
the poet in me wants to carve
a monument in song
a simple song
stronger than any granite wall
a song that says
Kate Molale is the people

but the poem won’t come