Cracker, and: Grandpop's Creed
- Cracker, and: Grandpop's Creed
Cracker
And that must be why when mother kissed my lips goodnight, that salty taste of her stained me with stars. Those days, above her was her crown of fire, glittered in bright colors like July 4th sparklers. Next to my father, black as black men can be, she was a diamond, sharp to touch. Silvery. When my great-grandmother, grown-up girl of two cotton picking slaves, called her Cracker! mother indeed crumbled as if in great-grandmother's fist, thrown to the ground for mice or footfalls. [End Page 60]
Grandpop's Creed
No soft words but a hammer.Something like a sweet woman's sweat.There's less where that came from.The more you cry, the less you pee.Crocodile tears don't a river make.The day is long and full of sin.Life rises up above like smoke.Curse God and die like Job meant to.Come back, come back to the ghetto.Don't worry, hurry...Quit blaming the Negro, don't you know:It's a long way up from slavery.Catfish is a damn dirty fish we love to eat.Comb them naps, sleep some other night.No need to die, this life will bury you alive. [End Page 61]
Roxane Beth Johnson is a freelance writer and editor living in San Francisco, CA. Her first book of poetry is Jubilee (Anhinga, 2006). Her second book is Black Crow Dress (Alice James Books, 2013). She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, 2007, and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem, and The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Harvard Review, The Georgia Review, Image, Callaloo, Beloit Poetry Journal, Chelsea and elsewhere.
