Mahogany L. Browne

Each flower a wilting sun
The death of a new day is never kind
Grief ain't no song
No loss is this romantic
...

i look into the noise mouth paper thin
my tongue a scatter of forgotten belongings
extinguishes the heat of home
...

when I dropped my 12-year-old off at her first
homecoming dance, I tried not to look

her newly-developed breasts, all surprise and alert
in their uncertainty. I tried not to imagine her

mashed between a young man's curiousness
and the gym's sweaty wall. I tried not picture

her grinding off beat/on time to the rhythm
of a dark manchild; the one who whispered

"you are the most beautiful girl in brooklyn"
his swag so sincere, she'd easily mistaken him for a god
...

I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holding me —Nina Simone

today i am a black woman in america
& i am singing a melody ridden lullaby
it sounds like:
the gentrification of a brooklyn stoop
the rent raised three times my wages
the bodega and laundromat burned down on the corner
the people on the corner
each lock & key their chromosomes
a note of ash & inquiry on their tongues

today i am a black woman in a hopeless state
i will apply for financial aid and food stamps
with the same mouth i spit poems from
i will ask the angels of a creative god to lessen
the blows
& i will beg for forgiveness when i curse
the rising sun

today, i am a black woman in a body of coal
i am always burning and no one knows my name
i am a nameless fury, i am a blues scratched from
the throat of ms. nina—i am always angry
i am always a bumble hive of hello
i love like this too loudly, my neighbors
think i am an unforgiving bitter
sometimes, i think my neighbors are right
most times i think my neighbors are nosey

today, i am a cold country, a storm
brewing, a heat wave of a woman wearing
red pumps to the funeral of my ex-lover's

today, i am a woman, a brown and black &
brew woman dreaming of freedom

today, i am a mother, & my country is burning
and i forget how to flee
from such a flamboyant backdraft
—i'm too in awe of how beautiful i look
on fire
...

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
...

If you ain't never watched your parents kiss
ain't neva have them teach you
‘bout the way lips will to bend & curve
against a lover's affirmation

If you ain't never watched the knowing nod
of sweethearts worn away & soft
as a speaker box's blown out hiss

If you ain't witnessed the glue
that connected your mother & father
—how they fused their single selves
into the blunt fist of parents

If you ain't sure there was a time when
their eyes held each other like a nexus
breaking the lock to dip dark marbles
into certain corners of a shot glass

If you ain't never known a Saturday night
slick with shiny promises & clouds
wrapped wet in a Pendegrass croon

If you ain't been taught how
a man hold you close so close
…it look like a crawl

If you ain't had the memory
of your mother & father sliding
hip to hip Their feet whisper
a slow shuffle & shift Her hand
on his neck grip the shoulder of
a man that will pass his daughters
bad tempers & hands like bowls

If you ain't watched a man
lean into a woman His eyes
a boat sliding across bronze
His hands
pillared in her auburn hair Her
throat holds the urge

to hear how her voice sounds against
the wind of him

If your skin can't fathom the heat
of something as necessary as this…

Then you can't know the hurricane
of two bodies how the bodies
can create the prospect of a sunrise
how that sunrise got a name
it sound like: a blues song;
a woman's heart breaking;
From the record player skipping
the sky almost

blue
...

Bam got tight eyes
Real tight
He crazy, girl
But he fun to be around
He's so funny
He the life of the party
He the oldest of them boys over on Alcatraz
He love them birds - the pigeons
That's what I heard
He got a cage in the backyard
He got a cage on the roof
He make the cage out of cardboard & wire
He scale roofs
He think he (can) fly
I heard he stole the pigeon from Albert's coop
All them boys went looking for Bam
He just waited for them on the stoop
I heard they went looking through his flock
Heard they ain't found nothing
Heard they ain't believe him
I heard his daddy made him fight them one-on-one
Everybody know they call him Bam cause of his hands
Cause his eyes so tight & you never know when he go boom!
He always had quick hands
That's how he call them birds back home
The rough of his hands clapping & singing loud
That's how he fought them boys
His hands ain't but a blur
He slap against the wind & win
Them boys ain't never forgot
But hell, what they goin' do—he see everything
His eyes so tight you never know what he thinking
He cracked his knuckles & they jumped on him
He clap his hands fast & it sound like a splintered bone
They say the it sound like firecrackers
He say the birds can hear him that way
He say if he clap loud enough they know to come home
He say home with his mouth big & smiling
But his eyes never change, he's so handsome
They say that's how he knew where to hide Albert's pigeon
Say he hid Albert's bird behind the broken board
His eyes shine like crazy laughter man lightning
He got hands like his daddy
His hands are so quick
—They steal anything worth something
...

& then the poet became G D/like
just'a rolling his tongue everywhere
like G O D must've
when the earth got birth(ed) & even

after the fertile soil turned
over on herself/ & the sky- a mix

between "blue&what you looking @?"

(that was sometime afta the 5th day)

when the crumbling grit shook her grin

loose crossed each arm & said

"Man? Nah…we good
...

Beside the tree
Beside the chair
Beside the house
Beside the pit
Beside the tree stump
Coco say don't climb / so I don't / I sit & stare — my skin coming dark and burnt
They say: tire
I say: brown
They say: Black Black can't take back!
& I don't
I learnt to not ask where I'm from
I learn to listen, then not
I'm too scared they gone tell me the things about myself
I done already buried in the dark
Beside the tree  Beside the chair Beside the house Beside the pit
Beside the tree stump I sit I sit I sit 'til no one even know I'm (t)here
...