You Made Me

At The Red Sea

So, this is where
         cries come to us,
where molting seagulls

peck the air. I never
    thought Crown Heights
        would be so quiet, just

a cantor & a blues singer
    weaving all the old begats
        into Cato, Yankel, Andy,

Michael, James . . . all the others
    transplanted to earthen dams
        & tenements. Sabbath-breakers

& charlatans sow seeds to kill
    fruit. What we forgot
        or never knew is enough

to teach the ant to profane
    sugar. To see injustice,
        don't care where your feet

are planted, you must be
    able to nail your left hand
        to a tree in full bloom.

Now, look at Sheba
    in Solomon's hanging garden,
        carved by grace from head

to toe, she was "wounded
    by love of wisdom" hidden
        in a cloud of galbanum

& myrrh. Didn't the King
    trust his heart? Let's hope
        the crystal floor

over that silent stream
    had nothing to do with
        the color of her skin,

but to prove her legs
    weren't like a donkey's.
        We sense what we've done

even if we can't say why
    we're dismayed or overjoyed
        by how the stones fit

in our hands. The egg
& sperm we would love
to deny, they still move

the blood till we can hear
    "I am black but comely,
        ye daughters of Jerusalem."

Some of us grow ashamed,
    peering up from the rat's hole
        in the belly of the Ark

till we're no longer the same
    women & men. Like Sheba
        & Solomon, who asked

hard questions, we know
    if a man is only paid
        a stud animal's fee,

he'll butt his head
    till stars rain down
        & kill some stranger.

In Line at the Bank

She eyes my haircut
    & jeans with the blue
        washed out. A pink

bubble detonates in her mouth quick
    as a July maypop, & she flips
        her presses hair like Lauren

Bacall in The Big Sleep.
    No, I won't do my best
        imitation of Bogart. I am

thinking about Hatshepsut
    who wrestled gods & bloodlines
        in the Valley of the Kings,

lightyears ahead of this coed
    gazing into her compact
        mirror, with a hint

of stereophonic Fishbone
    escaping from the headphones
        of her Sony walkman.

I'm not upwardly mobile enough,
    am I? Her texts are sealed
        in their prophylactic

covers, The Deconstruction
    of Hannibal Lector about
        to fall from her book bag.

Hatshesitu's obelisks
    blocked the midday sun
        from the temple of Amen-Ra

as she donned a man's garb
    & changed her name to Hatshepsut,
        after declaring God seduced her

mother "in a flood of light
    & perfume." The oil of ani
        scented her limbs

& her fragrance reached
    the land of Punt.
        Lost in her mirror

again, waiting to pay
    a twenty-five dollar
        overdraft, this coed

stands as if she were at Deir-
    el-Bahari in a temple. But sex
        goes out of me. It gives up

like an angel lying down within,
    since there's so little of herself
        she's learned to praise.

Hagar's Daughter

She left Greenbush as Fire
    Flower, Sparkling Fire, & Ish-
        scoodah, headed for Oberlin

College at thirteen,
    the Credit River Reserve
        in her voice, consonants caught

in her throat, her tongue
    lonely for anything Chippewa
        & African, becoming Edmonia

Lewis. She couldn't stop,
    couldn't keep creatures & fish
        out of her head, porcupine

quills & beads woven into her
    footsteps lost in distant grass,
        & called herself Wildfire

in the gaze of blue eyes.
    She worked light into paper
        up in a second-floor room,

a pencil unearthing Urania
    as a marriage gift for Clara,
        her classmate. But nothing

overshadowed the two girls
    who swore she doctored
        their wine with Spanish fly

before two boys took them
    sledding. Attackers left her for dead
        in the snow. She was still thankful

for John Langston,
    a godsend who could argue
        vomitus & urine in court--corpus

delicti. A yellow bird
    clung to a low branch
        as shadows fell asleep

against a stony slab.
    She drew night & day,
        but when someone...