- Palm Reader, and: Fight
Palm Reader
From my room, I hear my mother saybreast cancer and sing a low oww.
She repeats what her aunt says,lemon leaves mixed with something sweet.
When she hangs up the phone,she whispers, she must have been in painrecovering from these scars alone;
my breasts are small, young mountainsin my cupped hands. The left line in bothpalms leans farther in from the right.
I want to grow lemon trees to erase diseasesfrom my bloodline. The spaces between my fingers
are islands. I lay my body there to rest.The stub to my eleventh finger breathes
a genuine rhetoric. If one member is removed,a string of memories remains. The mother
to my mother's mother wore life for seventy years.The folds in my palm bend my hands to age.
The taste of lineage is sour, sour, running rancid. [End Page 46]
Fight
When the Holy Ghost whispers,his voice bouncingin my rib cage, I say no.It's the middle of the three-hour serviceand the keyboard presses hymnsto my tongue. The only notein my purse, I have planned to exchangefor crinkled fries dipped in three-day stalecanola oil. A greasy baptism for a dry fellowship.You're here, God is speaking to your heart,don't hold back. The speakers bombmy conscience. I promiseI do not want to go but the angels drag me.I waste to my knees at the altar.That five dollars is all I have, He knows.It is all He wants. [End Page 47]
Afua Ansong is a Ghanaian American writer, dancer, and photographer. Her work interrogates the challenges of the African immigrant in the United States, exploring themes of transition, citizenship, and identity. Her chapbook American Mercy is forthcoming with Finishing Line Press. Her work can be seen or is forthcoming in Frontier, Newfound, and elsewhere.