At a Dinner Party for White (Wo)men, and: “Mirror, Mirror: Mulatta Seeking Inner Negress”, and: Call Me “Mistress”

At a Dinner Party for White (Wo)men

[T]he other plates are creatively imagined vaginas…The Sojourner Truth plate is the only one in the collection that shows—instead of a vagina—a face.

—Alice Walker, in response to Judy Chicago’s 1970 exhibit The Dinner Party

Everyone else is invited to meet their vaginas—different denominations and colors—

except me, the magical negress. My boxalways absent because desire is not a privilege

for disenfranchised womendescendent from slaves—

we, still, their dark continent.

They cannot imagine my yawning labiabecause I do not pink at their touch,

cannot imagine me wet when I want to be,decidedly igniting follicles on my body.

At best, undressed, I am invisible, neutered, neutral—a breast-faced mammy assuaging centuries of shame

with archetypical depictions of tears and rage—a place at the table they refuse to learn to set.

“Mirror, Mirror: Mulatta Seeking Inner Negress”

—after Alison Saar

She taint white; she taint black—Alison Saar dreams in gold leaf and tar:

black women with domesticity stacked on our backs,baggage bound to us by our braids.

In cast iron and wool, in mountain and book,I am not mulatta seeking inner negress, but negress

seeking validation for who I am—

hued yellow-brown with thick thighs and wide hips,twice-educated with a tongue primed for lashings.

Mirror, mirror, as I child I wished I were mixed,jealous of Sally’s descendants—

a reason for their exclusion, confusion,an excuse for being partial to green-eyed glint.

I was illiterate in Philly Ebonics; my cousins fluent.Told by them I talked white. Told by whites I acted right.

They’d say nigger like a litmus testfor their Oreo theories, see if I’d flinch

or become performance they thought fittingof my corkscrew curls and full lips.

Call Me “Mistress”

Set your knees on concrete, lick my feet, and prepareto give me everything that’s not subversive—whitepicket fence and son, daughter, dog combo. No—make me a factory of tiny writhing tyrants, make mehomely, androgynous, exotic. Restructure my prayers—give my light to God. Tame the me who wantssex à la Négresse. Be who someone keepstelling you to be. Make me your manic pixie, make meyour [insert fantasy]. You are in control of this. This isyour worst nightmare. But you’re in luck. Time’s up.Jam the money between my teeth and leave. My name’snot “Mistress.” It’s Eve. It’s Sally. It’s ___________.