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Volume 30, Number 1/2 (2006) reprinted by permission Legal Studies Forum Lawyers & Poets Walk This Lonesome EVIE SHOCKLEY ________________________ Black Girl Goes Upstate Two hours north of the city, heavy hills heave, bracing up bravely beneath the weight of trees, the greenery so dense, some of it must have fled before the advance of Fifth Avenue, or Morningside Drive, long years ago, shuddering up the banks of the Hudson on ponderous, ancient roots. I voyaged the streets of this ever-ever land with a horse-loving man, who beamed about a Paso Fino named Gina, his chocolate baby with a star dawning between her eyes. He called Puerto Ricans "us," but sometimes "them," and made me a present of his admiration of Thurgood Marshall, glowing warm. While barns and apple stands cheered our passing with red roars, we marveled over the Cuban conquest of Miami, my sassy hair speaking- Sí, talking back-in tongues, and lands where black people live but are said not to exist under a legal fiction. Tell me another story, Armundo Ramirez. I love how you say "us" and mean me, too. One more story, where the brown people bravely endure under their blessings, where endless marching ends, finally, in a river valley with soil rich enough to foster vagabond roots. [447]
African Woman Survives Middle Passage Hands of jagged seashell slashed my wrap. It slid to the floor without protest and whispered my secrets. I gently detached my head, excised my pulsing heart, and set them just beyond the grasp of the seashell hands, the new moon lips. The hands and lips explored the wilding Nile of my neck, discovered my breasts and scaled them, conquered my nipples with calamitous kisses. The seashell hands beached my bruised body on the bed. The spear of iron caked with milk or moonlight dug deep inside me, mining me carelessly, spilling rivers of rubies. The spear erupted, flooding my womb with clouded acid, biting. The seashell hands heaved me from the bed into a wash of spent lust. I retrieved my soaking head and heart, squeezed them dry like sponges. I waded shed pain and salty shame, staggering weak back to my dungeoned sisters, dragging my wet eyes over their scabbed ankles. [448]
WHO DUNNIT? stole Miz Rosa from me!?! Took a woman in her prime, a trained warrior, a repeat offender, and slipped into her place a tired old lady who was just too wore out to obey the Jim Crow law, whispering, enough is enough . . . enough!! Who done this thing!?! Took my vibrantly colored, neatly-hemmed role model, and turned her inside out, making her look faded and a bit ragged at the seams. Not that being tired ain't a good enough reason to risk your life for the people. "I will not move" means "I will not move" -whether spoken wearily, defiantly, or matter-of-factly. You still liable to get your head busted, lose your job, land in jail . . . But, even so, tell me, Miz Parks- that afternoon, as you were looking out that bus window- tell me you weren't thinking about no aching feet. Tell me you were looking into the eyes of black folk [449]
to see how many would stand behind you, like trees planted by the water, and not be moved. Tell me you were recalling the decision you'd made months earlier: to be militant and proud of it. [450]
Love Letter Dear Rade, I hope when you get this here letter you still raisin yore full six feet a hell and still fillin out the waistline of them pants I give you last time you was home. If you is, you makin out better'n me. I'se plain dog-tired and my noondays ain't no brighter than other folks' dusk. I done rubbed calluses on my fingers, tickin off the days till I'ma feel yore big, crusty size twelves under my supper table again. Spose I better pologize right now for shoutin at you over the telephone line, soundin somethin like Sister Boone hollin for the devil to get on behind her with his evil self. Was Satan's doin that you gonna be another three hungry weeks a comin. I know I'm plumb foolish to be whinin, cause Lord!, them ragged dollars is spent before you ever strip the first leaf. But I needs you to bring yourself on home, baby, just as soon as the sun set on the last day a work. Them African Violets in the front window is fadin to white, and I is too. Yore loud-mouth dogs miss you, and I may just break down and howl with‘em soon. I never knew it, sugar, but I needs you to balance out our ole mattress. My side gettin lower and lower, the emptier yore side get. Love, Velo [451]
you must walk this lonesome say hello to moon leads you into trees as thick as folk on easter pews dark but venture through amazing was blind but now fireflies glittering dangling from evergreens like christmas oracles soon you meet the riverbank down by the riverside water bapteases your feet moon bursts back in low yellow swing low sweet chariot of cheese shines on in the river cup hands and sip what never saw inside a peace be still mix in your tears moon distills distress like yours so nobody knows the trouble it causes pull up a log and sit until your empty is full your straight is wool your death is yule moonshine will do that barter with you what you got for what you need draw from the river like it is well with my soul o moon you croon and home you go [452]
Evie Shockley (B.A., Northwestern; J.D., University of Michigan; Ph.D., Duke) grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, The Gorgon Goddess (Carolina Wren Press, 2001), and a forthcoming collection, a half red sea (Carolina Wren Press). Shockley is a graduate fellow of Cave Canem (1997-99) and a member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective. Prior to pursuing the Ph.D. in English, she clerked for Judge Nathaniel R. Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and practiced environmental law at Sidley & Austin in Chicago for four years. She is currently Assistant Professor of English at Rutgers University, where she teaches African American literature and creative writing (poetry). "WHO DUNNIT?" first appeared in Black Arts Quarterly. All the poems here were collected in Evie Shockley's The Gorgon Goddess (Carolina Wren Press, 2001). |
