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Konch - from Colleen J. McElroy
GANDY DANCER
Son was a high yella man
skin the color of russet potatoes
eyes the color of agates of cats
even women whistled when he passed
so pretty he could have been a changeling
‘‘Indian from them high cheek bones,”
the old women laughed – “and them eyes”
they said “them eyes could charm
the stink out of a skunk” – so naturally
the women in the family tried
to hide him from the world
and its 1930s rage and hunger
but he busted loose – broke out
stayed so long that when he returned
the family hardly knew him
“as I live and breathe” they said
looking at his white Panama hat
two toned shoes and empty pockets
he just wasn’t the same when he came
back from the Zone – all pins and needles
said he lost the way things smelled
his senses plugged with odors of death and dirt
where the bossman said the canal was to be
and his mother wailing nearly every hour
the handsomest of all her boys downcast
instead of staring holes through any woman
and Son washing himself in Fels Naptha
slicking his hair in pomade with little finger waves
his good clothes in a paperboard suitcase
the note to his mama on the kitchen table
SATURDAY NIGHTS
Papa's girls had all manner of hair
straight tendrils that fell tick tack on the floor
ropy coils loosened from rough poufs of hair
by late afternoon the kitchen smelled
of Bergamot oil and rosewater steamy
like starch stuck to the flat iron
each argued about who could fix
one another's hair best while the hot comb sizzled
to the click clack beat of curling tongs
Mama said in slavery times every
little girl's hair was cut short to keep folks
from guessing what man had fathered her
like it mattered when the wagon came
to trundle off those sold down the road
their mamas left crying in the dust
they used stingy dabs of Madame CJ Walker's
salve remembering Viola whose baby fine hair
was burnt to the root by backwater beauticians
they spoke of Dora Emma's crinkly hair
a thick braid down her back and stone gray
and Fanny's flapper bangs cut razor straight
they talked queens like Nefertiti and Sheba
they talked fast gals and saints and Broadway Blackbirds
like Ethel or Josephine: come from St. Louie like us
when all was said and done they burned the dredges
swept the matted hair into a pie tin leaving
brown marks where the kinky knots had been
so rats wouldn’t make a nest of it
so no one could make a nappy wig of it
so no-good folks wouldn’t put a spell on them
they cleaned the kitchen with talk of possibilities
of corn rows and spit curls and crimps
those little touches that kept colored girls forever beautiful
THE FIRE INSIDE
the men sit in lawn chairs under the elm tree
the surprise is how many photos appear
in a world you thought held only women
where were they when your grandmother
lamented the host of girls moaning
the stork brought me only one boy child
the men sit in the shadows of the tree
you are told to let them be with their talk
your world populated by women quick
to remind you of your birth father's absence
while page after page of faces recall
a family of men rusted from hard work
men turning into boys dressed
for the camera’s occasion
suits pressed pin neat fedoras tilted
you catalog by the shape of the nose
long and regal for your grandfather
or the slant of eye from great grandmother
no clues from skin color in varying hues
from porcelain to pitch uncles and cousins
men seeming to strut while holding still
Son in half shadows his eyes like glittering knives
and Warren a sweet brown version of Widmark
or some Oscar Micheaux film character
those in uniform remind the younger ones
how colored troops were the first
to liberate Dachau and how Patton trusted
his precious tanks to their care
men posed like gangsters or hipsters
leaving behind the ache of racism and riots
for this moment before the camera
their forever buttoned up in a clean shirt
colored only signs smudged in the lens
men folk who earned their place
frozen in time as if with the next breath
they will reveal everything under that mask
