Aziza meets the 4 women:
Aunt Sarah, Safronia, Sweet Thang, & Peaches at the Cotton Club afterhours

and Peaches was pissed like always cuz Sweet Thang was in the back fucking her man against the main generator making all the lights burn something foolish for the 3rd time that week and Aunt Sarah was this close to cutting off everyone’s hands with her bare mouth you forgot music came out of there for one throat there are so many faces it’s easy to lose one on a sour note and there was Safronia and I was gas-drenched in a room full of lit matches Safronia you read me to the muscle teach me this our thing your eyes are a manual I don’t have I laid my whole finger on her I wanna be seen by the bastard we are Safronia snatched my face and the lights came strong and the end of the world grew an arch in its back gave itself four mouths and a bitter blood spoke this, “what song you got? You five foot meaningless lil mix breed high yella how-you-pronounce-your-name red bone mulatto homeless daddy what do they call you?”

I opened my mouth wide and watched the air fall out

imitation of life

Sarah Jane got legs.

Two well-defined lies

pull her mother’s black body

through the snow—dusk

clinging to sugar cane. Under

a street lamp, Blue Eyes catch

her weathered hands on

Sarah Jane’s ankles—shackles on

white pillars, crumbling. Her skin

is an unruly organ. Tonight, ink

cannot swallow blood. Blue Eyes,

a lover in strange heat, tangles

Sarah Jane into a brick wall,

beating her until blood curdles

around those legs—his hands,

red and fooled. Sarah Jane

is an ox cursing the weight

of her plow. Her mother’s grip

blisters at Sarah Jane’s last words—

“If we should pass by on the street,

don’t recognize me.” At the funeral,

her black body is pulled by four

white horses. Sarah Jane’s voice

bucks through the crowd—

“She’s my mother!” No response

from the coffin: a dead woman

keeps her word. Mahalia Jackson

sings, sweeps the procession on—

Sarah Jane’s legs never matching

the snow.

the picnic

in a Sunday dress in Mississippi I learn the word picnic comes from a funny tradition bring the kids, Johnny! just got his first pair of long pants the checkered blanket freshly ironed, Johnny! pick one! you’re old enough! in his formative years, Johnny! supposed the rope grew out of the back of their necks whatever it was it was it was a muscle meant for you to grab with all ten knuckles pull twist tight let it swing, Johnny! didn’t get his father’s name the second-born everyone called him Sissy! he walked like one the unwanted son-of-a-butcher his family would tutter we were supposed to throw him out, Johnny! you can’t catch one in a flock! be patient one will get lost they are good at ending up in the middle of two sweaty palms make sure they’re yours, Johnny! grab that one the high yellow in a yellow dress catch fetch go, Johnny! go I feel a burning tug on my wrist a boy wading in his long pants what’s your name, Johnny! her hand ain’t the holding kind catch, Johnny! he slapped the back of my neck feeling for a growth I thought you were made for this no, Johnny! this is my good dress I only get one a tree is a dirty thing to play on pick one pick one catch, Johnny! be a good-for-something, Johnny!’s family eats a watermelon I watch from the tree til all the red is gone out of me til they are down to the bitter rind I’m sorry for the blood on my dress, Johnny! wasn’t it a pretty dress, Johnny!