Smudge Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by Mahogany L.. Browne

  Published by Button Poetry / Exploding Pinecone Press in collaboration with Penmanship Books

  Minneapolis, MN 55403 // Brooklyn, NY 11238

  http://buttonpoetry.com

  http://penmanshipbooks.com

  All Rights Reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Cover Design: Rico Frederick

  ISBN 978-0-9896415-7-9

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Slink Feel Good

  Vast

  When 12 Play Was on Repeat

  blurred vision

  sanctuary

  12 play genesis

  1981

  past before

  justification for the broken

  1992

  notes & acknowledgements

  about the author

  “I can’t look in her eye, seeing all that lonely, and think

  I got a right to keep being me” – Patricia Smith

  because you don’t just walk in nobody’s house party

  a Brooklyn studio kitchen the size of your mama’s

  bathroom the brownstone stone blessed by fried

  chicken smolder & he’s dressed in white linen

  your box braids swing a single swagger his

  eyes dance destruction a pair of four alarm fires alight

  he spread each flame across your breasts slick your

  name like his gin ignore his porcelain skin date again

  she wait like a mother told her women must do &

  you just an Oakland intersection flailing Brooklyn men

  with your accent & gestures “have never been there before”

  so he say “I will drop her off” he say “let me take you”

  his smile a question mark his date’s slender haunts the night

  air & you brown dirty dark black blackest night midnight blue

  bl_ _k girl y o u

  so

  blk

  somehow you forgot your name

  Slink Feel Good

  you ain’t never been the type

  to let a man climb his ocean

  of a body through your bedroom

  window not like Li Li

  she first born daughter

  to a correctional baton man

  she learn quick how to sweet talk

  a man away from his sensibilities

  & you be: the type

  of swoon & shadow frame

  & sickle moon sliced into the

  brown you be: Li Li-like

  mimic you point your toes

  into the canvas of your bleached

  Keds straighten your stretch pants

  in plain sight & wait

  for any boy’s heat to greet

  your famished eyes burnt orangish brown

  under the delirious sun

  Li Li always called you

  pretty always called the next

  morning when Steven slink

  his body from her bed or her

  window ajar

  y’all laugh the rotary phone

  a coil of secrets tapping against

  the carpeted floor she

  sigh a breath of fresh crisp

  & alive against your virgin ears

  “it feel like something inside is on fire”

  Vast

  “She pursued, adored and claimed me,

  and I was desperate to be claimed.” – Rebecca Walker

  you held Justin’s hand in the dark

  in the garage corner while everyone

  else pretended to not watch

  you both were slippery tongues

  & new the idea of girlfriend swam

  a drunken song

  you held my breath & his hand wandered

  you wondered & he tripped across your skin

  his eyes brown & one lazy

  remained partially closed & full

  aware of the dark his lap almost

  a hot brick

  your desire to be wanted

  a cooling dam so

  vast it drenched you both

  the blk(est) night is a blk

  girl s w o l l e n smirk she

  swell sideways saunter

  a skillful solemn sound

  in skimming sunsets the

  key of lonely ever since

  “God/Who dat?” – Alice Walker

  cause you ain’t seen none of them praying/when

  they crack/baby skull/open wide/on the side-

  walk/call it jump in/like a black child need to

  know/ how destructive a leap can be/like his

  black skin know what “in” mean/in the first

  damn place/they say family and gang/ be

  the same/so it ain’t mean nothing different/

  when your uncle/sit over you/let his fist/get to

  dancin’ on your black girl head/ & your bl__k

  girl nose/& your blk girl chin/be all

  mangled/like a disaster tailored just for your

  frame/ & he think he testin’ you/for the waters/

  so the sharks know/you the toughest meat/ &

  that’s the shyt that will save a bitch/so you take

  each blow/like a puppy drunk on its own

  whimper/ hold his three year old daughter/

  as far a w a y as possible/his scabbed knuckles

  dancing wildly against the dusk

  When 12 Play Was on Repeat

  when you are a deep amber & your jheri curl is a distant memory & your shape is swollen in the perfect places & the boys remember your name & your first and last crush sings to you come here with a lilt in his walk & his tongue wags you towards him with its pale pink & you smile because you remember the sun wrinkles your darkness so you pull corners of your bright face & squint like you practiced in the bathroom mirror where only a hint of your gap-tooth smile lingers like a wager & you think of the time you danced in the basement against the brown boy with a half-moon fade beneath your hungry hands even then you were frowning in the dark trying to figure out if his fingers should shove themselves between your cotton & denim like that because you could not understand the wet & you frowned & he stopped & you thought i want to but his eyes were all over your face & his smell was copper & so close & you sighed & he stopped & you know now that means uncertainty but you were certain that you weren’t certain enough to know what a sigh can mean but now you smile just in case anyone is really looking at your face & in the dark he says come here & he is what you’ve always wanted & it is in the senior class lock-in which is a storm of hormones high on endo smoke & everclear & everyone is touching someone & no one is frowning including you & it’s like the time when stories are passed during homeroom & locker rooms & you always wanted to have a story for the cold tiles when there are only bra straps & lip gloss & hair brushes & smiles where no frowns are found because you don’t know what it is like to lose yourself into a shadow you only know how to fold each breath like a blk girl mistake into the borrowed white stretch jeans pocket & wait

  the blk(est) night

  be a blk girl

  she think

  her hair

  too good

  & her waist

  too small

  & her fit

  too cute

  & her jeans

  too flyy

  & her mama ain’t nothing

  like her

  & the bitches

  on the corner

  ain’t nothing like her

  & can’t nobody sweat her style

  but jesus

  blurred vision

  you & Li Li ain’t talking

  cause she think she cute

  cause she think you ain’t

  must be pretty boy

  C
urtis all in her

  head all in her mouth

  making her forget her home

  training making her

  forget her daddy got a gun

  for a living & her mom

  ain’t live with them &

  this is why you think she ain’t

  got no sense no how cause

  ain’t nobody but fast girls

  checking for Curtis &

  he keep her name close

  & she don’t come

  home the same way no more

  she must think she cute

  must think you ain’t how

  she keep you waiting like

  you posed to wait on Curtis – or something

  & you hate his light skin self

  ‘cause he ain’t funny as he think

  ‘specially when he call you blk

  & ugly & stupid &

  she stay grinning like he the sun

  like ya’ll ain’t friends like you ain’t protect her from them heffas that want to jump on her

  every time we go to the skate rink cause Li Li pretty & they boyfriends forget they

  home training around her so when Curtis say the thangs you already done said about yourself

  & his friends laugh you know deep down inside she ain’t never really thought you was pretty no how

  how she just said them lies to keep yo shadow all up & around her sunshine smile

  when you go to the pool party & everybody there in they bikinis & you got your one piece with a white t-shirt

  on top & the boys just’a looking like they mama ain’t taught them nothing worth knowing & Li Li got that

  good hair so she don’t care if it’s wet & loose & your hair ain’t close to being good so you keep it in a tight

  tight ponytail til the sun get so hot you jump in to cool your sadness down it’s like you already

  know you let your shoulders sink low like your heart be

  & watch Li Li how she walk & everybody stop & you trynna learn

  cause ain’t nobody got time for the kind of shade you got but everybody got time for the s u n

  Li Li smile at Curtis he only a little bit cute & he ain’t funny or smart so that’s how you

  know she lying & you pretend you don’t hear his South Sacramento slur you pretend you can’t see his

  hazel eyes he say

  “lose her ugly black ass” & Li Li laugh she say “shut up, Curtis” but it sound like “come here” so you

  dunk your head

  underwater slow & wait for her to say something like:

  “don’t talk about my friend, i don’t care how pretty your eyes is”

  but she just say “shut up” & she laugh & you think you could stay here where it’s all a blurry aqua

  blue you think

  you could stay here where your eyes don’t hurt so much & it don’t feel like you been looking at the

  sun all day long

  sanctuary

  women are taught that first love/look like sisterhood/taught the way a woman hold her sister is the way she hold herself/her god say she her sister’s keeper/& her sister need good hands to hold the jump rope sturdy/her sister need still hands to keep the wolves at bay/her sister need strong legs/the kind that don’t bend & buck when blood come just’a rushing out her head/or her nose/or between her legs/her sister need know how to clean the wounds til sewn/how to braid the wool with pomade/how to fill the cup until liquor poureth over/how to keep the liquor from pouring over/and sloshing out/all out into the world/where a woman already made to look like a mess/like an oil spill/like a junkyard dog with no chain/no sister want to be no dog with no chain/or no home/or no man/no sister want to be no dog no how/no sister want to be so common/that all she know is hunger/no sister want to bark at the scent of a man/no sister want to be the type that howl all that lonely/the kind to keep her closest sisters like a broken chain/with they back all crooked/& they edges ruined from the flood/the world so full of floods calling themselves love from the ruin of a shattered dam/no, a sister want to be the type of sister who can keep her kin safe/until her safe become familiar/a sister want to learn to keep her hands open with love/until her love become as holy as her mother’s name/a sister want to be the type to build the bridge/that keep a sister from sleeping in the trenches/a sister without this type of currency/is a broke woman/& every sister need know her hands were blessed for something more rich/every sister need know a tribe of women willing to pad her knees & elbows with shea butter/willing to sing wind into her hair like a prayer/a sister want to be the type to be prayed for/to be prayed for/to be prayer/til prayer become mantra/til mantra find a home in her bones/til mantra stretch itself wide/and reach her fingertips/til her fingertips hold the jump rope for her sisters/til her fingertips keep the other wolves at bay/til the wolves hear the hymn/& know she is a sister with sanctuary/& this sanctuary got the type of hymn that her ugly woman mouth be singing pretty/ even though everything around her say run

  12 play genesis

  deep amber distant memory shape is swollen perfect brown boy remember

  your name last crush sings a lilt in his walk his tongue wags pale

  pink & you smile because the sun because darkness pull corners of your face

  squint gap-tooth hint smile lingers; wager & you danced; half-moon

  – fade your hungry hands you, frown in the dark his fingers shove

  between your cotton & denim & wet you frowned & he stopped uncertain you, in the dark

  smell copper sighed but you, want in a storm of hormones

  high on endo smoke everyone is touching someone no one is frowning

  & stories passed you always want to have a story for the cold, you don’t know what it is

  you fold each breath like a black girl mistake to lose yourself in a shadow wait

  1981

  The first time you realize you love a girl your sister will make you pay a smart lean across your adoring eyes the brownest thing on earth, your mama say & sister will wiggle her finger like a secret & you love her so much you can’t stand it you pretend you are her & wear her PJs the ones with the yellow rainbows across the chest the ones tossed at the edge of the daybed every time she leaves for her father’s house & you don’t go over there as much cause your mama say NO & she let you cry or sometimes they just wait til you sleep or sometimes you forget to cry until they walk back up the driveway the next day & you got a name for what pain slams in your chest but your brother & sister both older & mama-look-a-likes climb across the pavement drop their bags returned to you on the lawn you wait & your sister know you love her cause you do whatever she demands & she wiggle her finger say got a secret & your brown brown eyes open wide w/ huh? the water hose an unsteady dam in your hands shoot the dirt up from the grass & spray dark drops on your face but you can’t be bothered so you scurry across the wet lawn close enough to her face to hear her whisper “mom found you in the gutter we told her to give you away but she wouldn’t listen.”

  past before

  Ain’t no man ya DADDY

  Sleep w/a broken bulb above the porch

  listen carefully for the haunt the b o n e s h a t t e r

  listen as it shuffles across threshold

  a blue & gluttonous rat

  Ain’t NO man ya daddy

  Find a man w/soft eyes Find a man

  w/no hands Find a man w/no home

  PRAY

  Ain’t no MAN ya’ daddy

  When the first moon spills open like

  a cavernous beast & your

  mother forgets to draw the curtains

  of her smile

  the floorboards can be the sledge hammer

  flush a splinter from the base

  beneath your big toe

  hold it like a pitchfork (or a gun)

  swing (aim)

  *boom*

  ▪

  once you snuck a boy into your mama’s house he is the worst idea ever born this is before his box cut fade turned disa
ster warning smoke your trust can you see it? his crooked yellow grin/a siren alarm/your hands crossed?

  ▪

  i want to tell you a story it goes like this/the girl w/the slit for eyes & tight mouth sneaks her high school dropout boyfriend into the house/while the adults sleep noisily you have a new sliver of admiration for her/something about the green chipped paint staining the seat of her whitestretch jeans or the broken garage door open like a panting dog/ something about her bravado urges you peek into the room & listen as your cousin recounts the night/a honorable evening/a less ambitious high school dream/cause you are still in middle school/so your stomach is already hot w/giggles cause no one says “slut”/ not like the time the new girl from los angeles moved into your neighborhood/her first week smelled like a sweet valley high chapter except she is nothing like Jessica/no blue eyes/no blonde hair/nothing except her girl shape & her dangerous eyes & she is everything like you except the boys like her & not when no one is looking & everyday everyone is looking/her acid washed jeans announce she is not from here/she is different you think you could want be this type of different/you think you could want this type of different holding your name/& after school everyone walks home by the swallow of oak trees/near the quiet bend & soccer post furthest from the park & you want to follow the crowd to sit beneath the shade but you have chores/but you have not been remembered yet/& acid washed jeans girl is not your friend/yet/so you have no real reason to pretend you belong & the next day you try not to be surprised/your mouth a silent O when you return to school/the new girl w/acid washed jeans is no longer shiny/no longer new/just another brown girl/gone blk/& unwanted/& almost closer to you & her name is a bone in their mouths/all cause her acid washed jeans were caught around her ankles at the park w/one of the loudest of swaggers/he claim the prize/he raise his hands/he say w/a barrage of snarls “she stink” “she nasty” “she let me..” & after school no one is walking w/her no one is following her unless to laugh at her call her “fishgirl” call her anything but her name