“If I woke up one morning,
and God had changed me into a Negro child,
would you still love me all the same?”
I’m eight years old
and my daddy’s got me thinking.
All his preaching about God’s
unconditional love
and how it’s like the way
parents love their children…
I smell a fish.
My mother was in no mood
for my silliness.
“Come back when you’ve
got a question
about something that’s possible.”
“But God can do anything.
Doesn’t that make turning me
into a Negro child possible?’
My daddy says I shouldn’t mock God.
I never reckoned that’s what I was doing.
He turned on his preacher voice.
“Now if God turned you into a Negro child
it would be for a very good reason
and not something we would understand.”
But would you love me all the same?
Dicy comes to clean our house every Monday.
Her real name is Virginia Fuqua.
She needs the money,
but she dusts like she doesn’t care.
She’s moving things around
that my mother has set in place,
and later my mother will complain.
“Dicy keeps moving things from where I put them.
I wish she would just leave them alone.”
Dicy knows, but she does it anyway.
“Your mama got too many salt and pepper shakers.
She need to give some of them to Dicy.”
Some weekends when my mother is busy
I go to Dicy’s house out in the country.
Dicy’s girls and I jump double dutch
in the dirt side yard.
They know the best rhymes.
I share them at school
with the white girls.
Dicy’s house smells clean
and always like greens.
Her girls and I study color.
“Put your arm
up next to ours,” they say.
We stare.
Dicy irons and watches us.
Sixth grade.
Negro children come to my school.
Now it’s their school, too,
just not in their neighborhood.
The teachers act like it’s
always been this way.
They don’t want any trouble.
They talk like we’re all the same.
Nope, they don’t want any trouble.
I get my homework done
while Dicy makes supper
before my mother arrives.
I think about her girls
and the rhymes
and our arms
lined up like a flag.
Dark, light, dark.
I don’t mention
any of this
to my mother or dad.
Some things are best
kept to myself.
All over the south
people are marching and sitting
and preachers are preaching
a Godly confusion.
After church my mother and I go to lunch.
There are reserved signs on all the restaurant tables.
My heart sinks.
“Its’s OK. You can set anywhere you want;”
The waitress says to us.
At the door a Negro family is stopped.
No room in the inn.
Their faces appear determined.
I don’t want to eat at this place ever again, ever.
I tug at my mother.
She pays no attention to my questions.
The Negro family stands their ground at the door.
My mother tells me to stay still in case there’s trouble.
I saw trouble on the tables before the Negro family arrived.
Now we’re back home.
The house is still.
A dark sadness shadows everything
that never gets said.
I’m a child with a simple question.
It will be years before I know
I was not alone;
that lots of children wanted to know,
“If I woke up one morning,
and God had changed me into a Negro child,
would you still love me all the same?”
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Lot's Wife
My four year old knuckles
are white against the edge of the pew.
Sodom and Gomorrah are burning.
The people cry out under the rain of fire and brimstone.
Lot’s wife is in a stew.
She hears familiar voices in distress
and weighs giving a backward glance.
Lot walks down the hill
from the small towns that are no longer
hidden from an angry deity.
Their worship of other gods
and the itches they dared to scratch
brought down a righteous wrath.
Lot’s wife can bear it no more
and so she turns.
In an instant, crystalline feet slow her to a halt;
her legs, her arms, her sodium chloride core
break her stride.
My mother appears quite calm, bored even.
The pulpit, mere feet away,
vibrates as my daddy’s voice crescendos
to emphasize how dire the matter has become.
The people of Sodom and Gomorrah
wilt under harsh, ancient rules
written in King James’ tongue.
A rule book the size of a Sears and Roebuck catalogue
condemns their lust.
Their carnal fire turns white hot
and vaporizes them all.
And at the edge of the towns
stands a lone, forever stilled figure;
a symbol of mankind’s collective disobedience.
In Sunday School
There is a table covered with wax paper
Shakers of salt in a line.
“Today our story is about Lot’s wife
and what becomes of people
who disobey our heavenly Father,”
my teachers say.
They want us to remember
the fate of the woman who looked back
out of curiosity, perhaps in longing,
over neighbors whose end came so quickly.
What on earth did they do, really?
The salt gets poured into vials
and a solution seals them so they harden quickly.
I carry Lot’s wife out of the classroom in my pocket.
I cannot help the feeling of utter terror that’s come over me.
How far am I from turning into a pillar of salt?
An Alabama rain begins to fall.
Big drops the size of marbles
splatter against everything.
My pocket soaks up the water.
By the time I reach my mother
Lot’s wife is a wet, crumbly mess.
Checking my pocket my mother’s forehead wrinkles.
“What is this in your pocket?”
“Lots’s wife,” and my tears fall
with the rain.
My mother takes no notice of my distress.
She pulls me to a wastebasket
where my pocket is turned inside out
and hand brushed.
I watch Lot’s wife disappear, sprinkled
over paper towels and chewing gum.
That night I have a recurring dream.
I’m in the very hell my daddy described
that is the place of eternal punishment
for people who will not follow God’s rules.
My daddy spoke of jots, tittles, and iotas.
My four year old self cannot grasp
the nature of those words.
But my sins have brought me here,
to this white hot hell,
where it is so dark
I can’t see my hand in front of my face.
Flames leap and people cry,
but there is no conversation.
The people can only cry out for all eternity.
I call out for my mother
She comes to my room, wringing her hands,
for the umpteenth night in a row.
My heart races and I am covered in hives.
Dr. Kates arrives in the middle of the night
His satchel brings relief.
An injection calms my anxious self
and the hives retreat one more time.
“She is a sensitive child,” I hear him tell my mother.
Dr. Kates packs his magic satchel.
He seems unbothered by the hour of the night;
his potions, pills, and soft ways
dressed in humility.
Meanwhile my mother rocks me to sleep
and an angry God marks time.
are white against the edge of the pew.
Sodom and Gomorrah are burning.
The people cry out under the rain of fire and brimstone.
Lot’s wife is in a stew.
She hears familiar voices in distress
and weighs giving a backward glance.
Lot walks down the hill
from the small towns that are no longer
hidden from an angry deity.
Their worship of other gods
and the itches they dared to scratch
brought down a righteous wrath.
Lot’s wife can bear it no more
and so she turns.
In an instant, crystalline feet slow her to a halt;
her legs, her arms, her sodium chloride core
break her stride.
My mother appears quite calm, bored even.
The pulpit, mere feet away,
vibrates as my daddy’s voice crescendos
to emphasize how dire the matter has become.
The people of Sodom and Gomorrah
wilt under harsh, ancient rules
written in King James’ tongue.
A rule book the size of a Sears and Roebuck catalogue
condemns their lust.
Their carnal fire turns white hot
and vaporizes them all.
And at the edge of the towns
stands a lone, forever stilled figure;
a symbol of mankind’s collective disobedience.
In Sunday School
There is a table covered with wax paper
Shakers of salt in a line.
“Today our story is about Lot’s wife
and what becomes of people
who disobey our heavenly Father,”
my teachers say.
They want us to remember
the fate of the woman who looked back
out of curiosity, perhaps in longing,
over neighbors whose end came so quickly.
What on earth did they do, really?
The salt gets poured into vials
and a solution seals them so they harden quickly.
I carry Lot’s wife out of the classroom in my pocket.
I cannot help the feeling of utter terror that’s come over me.
How far am I from turning into a pillar of salt?
An Alabama rain begins to fall.
Big drops the size of marbles
splatter against everything.
My pocket soaks up the water.
By the time I reach my mother
Lot’s wife is a wet, crumbly mess.
Checking my pocket my mother’s forehead wrinkles.
“What is this in your pocket?”
“Lots’s wife,” and my tears fall
with the rain.
My mother takes no notice of my distress.
She pulls me to a wastebasket
where my pocket is turned inside out
and hand brushed.
I watch Lot’s wife disappear, sprinkled
over paper towels and chewing gum.
That night I have a recurring dream.
I’m in the very hell my daddy described
that is the place of eternal punishment
for people who will not follow God’s rules.
My daddy spoke of jots, tittles, and iotas.
My four year old self cannot grasp
the nature of those words.
But my sins have brought me here,
to this white hot hell,
where it is so dark
I can’t see my hand in front of my face.
Flames leap and people cry,
but there is no conversation.
The people can only cry out for all eternity.
I call out for my mother
She comes to my room, wringing her hands,
for the umpteenth night in a row.
My heart races and I am covered in hives.
Dr. Kates arrives in the middle of the night
His satchel brings relief.
An injection calms my anxious self
and the hives retreat one more time.
“She is a sensitive child,” I hear him tell my mother.
Dr. Kates packs his magic satchel.
He seems unbothered by the hour of the night;
his potions, pills, and soft ways
dressed in humility.
Meanwhile my mother rocks me to sleep
and an angry God marks time.
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