Staceyann Chin

CHRISTMAS/BIRTHDAY:::etc

Years

and years and years
ago

a small girl was born
a few years before that

a man named Jesus
on the very same day was born

they say
no one knows for sure

Christ
then me

two pounds of wiggling flesh
deposited for humor
on a plate

reserved for dinner
that was me

three-score and two
jahre

this year has been a humdinger
but I survived this one too

fuck you
despair

the sky has been shooting stars
still

even in the absence of people
lovers
friends

enemies I have allowed
too close to my pound of wiggling flesh

you will not eat me
alive

kill me first and then my body will
be dust

you will choke on it
my body will take your breath away

butterfly/phoenix

insect
sometimes you look like something
firefly drawn as I was to you

scorpion
you left me stung world

years later my chest till dances the rise
and fall of defiance

I love you Larah
and Lisa
Delano
Gabby

Chauntelle
Racquel
Janelle

Asha
Asante
Dominique
Tiona

Ain
and her pen

AUDRE
FRIDA
ZORA

Toni Morrison
Edwidge Danticat

Kamau Brathwaite
Kwame

Your names have become Litany
on my tongue
my ear

Alice
and Darcy

I am glad you both have hearts
ears

Suheir
rainbow girl reminding me
things bloom even when we are pressed
thick beneath gray skies

things are aflower
girl!

Ishle
Tamica
Robyn

breath and laughter
this is what I wish for
under the open sky
of the alps

I am dreaming in colored
frocks/skirts

my mother's dream for herself
come true for me

I am writer
traveler

face
belonging to too many places
I sleep well
in none of them

hotel rooms
even at Christmas

my birthday
one hallway away from my brother

we fight
and laugh and reminisce

and forgive
in a house/hotel in which he tumbles
over his pictures/plants/present identity

not quite black boy
at home in Austria
in Jamaica

sleeps under feathers
me

I am breathing in
this clean air

this clear water reflecting more than
my own History

carving the shape of this
new direction

love of self
is a thing of rapid splendor

jewelled and glinting in the quiet
gray of skies
you once knew intimately as blue

it will come again
Christmas makes one less day
for winter

time pass
so fas'
so fas' so fas' so fas'

Cheryl Boyce Taylor
say it pas' too fas' for she heart

my body still holding on
to girlhood

dunno why
I ain't had no chirren yet

but soon
child

I soon come fi you

just wait right there
and I will come

maybe next year will bring something more than this wild promise made every year
after year I making promise

time to make the baby, eh?

in love
and all the things that make us conflicted
about birthdays
and Christmas

and all that jazz

Til nex' time,
Staceyann

Posted by staceyann at December 25, 2004 07:34 AM