Redbone Dances Poem by Mahogany L. Browne

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