Three Poems

For Kwame Nkrumah

When the news came that you had died, your sonsgathered in the front way, and did not know why

they gathered. Smoke in the fireplace curled upwards,and the elders said how good it was that you'd left

so much smoke behind. When dawn comes, we needthe ash, we need the charred wood and chips of wood

to light the new fire. Every day needs its own fire sinceno one borrows one night's moonlight for another night.

Kwame, Osagyefo, sharp eyes that saw the history wenow live. When you died, there we were. We gathered

to hear the sad news, and told our mute selves how strongyou had left us even though we knew how truly weak

we had become. Today we've burnt up all the shrinesyou built, shrines of times to come; the vision we saw

in your eyes has perished with time. We cannot even findour way back to where you stood, proclaiming that someday-

Africa would be free, one day, Africa would be truly one,you said. Today, I saw our ancestral masks on sale here

in America, downtown Kalamazoo at the Black Arts Festival.The very shrines, now doomed artifacts, something you

never told us about. That they would burn down everythingwe had? That they would bring our own relics to stand

between us and the new world, just in case someone needsto cover their immaculate walls? That we would buy

our own treasures from corner streets downtown America?Your photo was downtown Kalamazoo too, on sale,

blown up by the artist who blows up other people's ancestorsfor sale. They have brought back our masks, masks from

years and years ago, Kwame. A woman next to me fiddledwith the mask, turning it side to side. You could still see

the white chalk, white mud from ages of living in the shrines.Other peoples' gods, other peoples' ancestral relics in

other peoples' land. If you could come and see the castlesyou built, or see the sons you carved up the land for, Kwame,

who knows if you would laugh or cry or sigh or just standthere while the rain pours down your face. Kwame, they

are making new books about you now. Your enemiesknow how to tell your story better than your friends.

Stranger Woman

In the village, the old women pull her out,the afterbirth and all. She is dashed into

wrinkled, welcoming hands, then a warm lappaembraces her as the old women chant praise names

from here to far away places, and then the blessings.Iyeeh ties up, then snaps off the naval string, then

washes the newborn woman who is screamingthroat, tongue, and guts out. Then the beading

begins—wrists, ankles, neck, waist, all stringedup. This new woman, who is now bound.

After that, the piercing of soft ears so earrings willpass through. Little black threads strung in place

until the earrings arrive. Then the naming is done,and maybe there'll be a Rooster's Feather

stuck in her dark, curly hair, and she's betrothedto some man, who himself is only a child.

He may never discover how she was destinedto re-create or destroy him someday. In the village,

you may find her walking to school, after discardingthose birthing beads for puberty, her breasts

sharp like needles, or maybe, on the farm road,she walks, now married before the breasts

are even formed, practicing on the way to market,dirges she will sing at the funeral of her father-in-law

whom she dislikes terribly. In the city, you mayfind the stranger woman who is so many girls

at the same time, in college, or a high schooldrop out; maybe, a single mother who takes home

the latest baby to her mother, or you may find herin the doctor's office, beneath white jacket, the doctor.

The stranger woman, now a mother, a wife, or maybenot even a wife or a mother, not a...