Rice: Poems

Understudies

31 Understudies I. Cara We know too much Nothing is impaired And everything still works on us Our breasts still number four Our hair a few years still from gray No one has pulled our insides out Plopped us into alcohol jars Peeled or flushed any part of us away lucky We can still Run and jump and dodge Still we do not take kindly To needing Our voices dim naturally When there’s more than one in the room If we have to ask If it really needs doing It gets done Quietly finished We know too much Remember Nothing is impaired And everything still works The kitchen A magic shop 32 Holding our mother’s worktables Merely the steam from there Brings chocolate genies around To the doors Of private kilns We daughters baked in Fingers feet legs lips Brown-n-serve till done We fed off their knowingness We know too much We come The sweet of the berry The juice The primary pulp The best of toasted womens Who lingered long in the kitchen Who watched long At the hot stove glass Ten padded toothpicks touching Their breadfruit Their okra pies Rising II. Cara Cara We know too much Have sat up too many nights Trying to make it all sense out Just to know even more by morning Enough to always leave the Saturday party early Enough to go home and cut and carve 33 Some teeth some words out From stored vats of mama wax Make something into something Just to know some come Sunday more We have seen them Something always wrapped around their hair In case of hurricane In lieu of quake Tornadoes roost there calmly Waiting out some insolence Waiting on some disrespect Just in case it comes Tropical storms could twist out anytime Get loose Through their eyes On occasion And claim any territory they please When we come roun’ They settle back easylike They know we know too much On them nothing is impaired And everything still works We have heard them up Up before anything dare move Seen our mamas Out early before their menfolk Talking ’cross the fence Pinning money to airing mattresses Nailing rocking chairs To a tipping porch Saving early in their lives What they know they’ll need Later on 34 III. Cara We know what we saw Cliffs were delivered When our mothers ordered harbors Sears catalogue #1269 Pristine white trucks With their engines still running Dropped on the back steps Alongside The mail The milk We know too much To ever return anything Make some use of it Before we are anything While we are everything Whether we are tooth doctor Whether word grower We are teachers In any world Instructing From any board In Kinte intonations In sepia equations Teachers come from teachers We fall from lesson planners’ legs We stoke the air for fat arms Toting a Webster Or corn bread bound in code Who learn as we go Who always go 35 Back to the attic Where the hiding is fine Where the gathering up great The paint by numbers The oil sets Frances overlooked Doris stepped across No time in their lives for such foolishness We connect their dots We draw strong black lines That will help us bare some pictures Like they bore some pictures Set in chestnut antique hand-me-down frames We are understudies Who have learned our own lines And for backup Have learned theirs too Damn Cara damn We know too much IV. Cara How must we go on Do we toe the line or throw it How far from land are we How far from shore might it hit If we do How much longer is the road And when do the potholes start My hands hurt more these days And your cussing is worse 36 Knowing what we know Other than their girls Just who are we What will they know us for And will anyone be able to see them through us And when it’s time How do we move them over Onto their backs Push them out to sea Without being bone struck to stone By their bolting back eyes Everytime they say Come home We know they know We are not coffee table daughters Even though The catalogue still rests there Even though...