Three Poems
HERO
She never knew one of us from another, so my brothers and I grew up fightingOver our mother’s mindLike sun-colored suitors in a Greek myth. We were willingTo do evil. We kept chocolateShe cried at funerals, cried when she whipped me. She whipped meDaily. I am most interested in people who declare gratitudeFor their childhood beatings. None of them took what my mother gave,Waking us for school with sharp slaps to our bare thighs.That side of the family is darker. I should be grateful. So I will be—No one on earth knows how many abortions happenedBefore a woman risked her freedom by giving that risk a name,By taking it to breast. I don’t know why I am alive nowThat I still cannot impress the woman who whipped meInto being. I turned my mother into a grandmother. She thanks meBy kissing my sons. Gratitude is black—Black as a hero returning from war to a country that banked on his death.Thank God. It can’t get much darker than that.
