Jamila Woods

Your voice crawls across the dashboard of Grandma’s Dodge Dynasty on the way home from Lilydale First Baptist. You sing a cocktail of static and bass. Sound like you dressed to the nines: cowboy hat, fur coat & alligator boots. Sound like you lotion every tooth. You a walking discography, South Side griot, keeper of crackle & dust in the grooves. You fell in love with a handmade box of wires at 16 and been behind the booth ever since. From wbez to V103, you be the Coolest Gent, King of the Dusties. Your voice wafts down from the ceiling at the Hair Lab. You supply the beat for Kym to tap her comb to. Her brown fingers paint my scalp with white grease to the tunes of Al & Barry & Luther. Your voice: an inside-out yawn, the sizzle of hot iron on fresh perm, the song inside the blackest seashell washed up on a sidewalk in Bronzeville. You soundtrack the church picnic, trunk party, Cynthia’s 50th birthday bash, the car ride to school, choir, Checkers. Your voice stretch across our eardrums like Daddy asleep on the couch. Sound like Grandma’s sweet potato pie, sound like the cigarettes she hide in her purse for rough days. You showed us what our mommas’ mommas must’ve moved to. When the West Side rioted the day MLK died, you were audio salve to the burning city, people. Your voice a soft sermon soothing the masses, speaking coolly to flames, spinning black records across the airwaves, spreading the gospel of soul in a time of fire. Joycetta says she bruised her thumbs snappin’ to Marvin’s “Got to Give It Up” and I believe her.

beverly be the only south side you don’t fit in everybody in your neighborhood color of white hen brown bag tupperware lunch don’t fill you after school cross the street, count quarters with white friends you love 25¢ zebra cakes mom would never let you eat you learn to white lie through white teeth at white hen oreos in your palm, perm in your hair everyone’s irish in beverly, you just missin’ the white skin pray they don’t notice your burnt toast, unwondered bread you be the brownest egg ever born from the white hen pantry in your chest where you stuff all the Black in distract from the syllables in your name with a white grin keep your consonants crisp, coffee milked, hands visible never touch the holiday-painted windows of white hen you made that mistake, scratched your initials in the paint an unmarked crown victoria pulled up, full of white men they grabbed your wrist & wouldn’t show you a badge the manager clucked behind the counter, thick as a white hen they told your friends to run home, but called the principal on you & you learned Black sins cost much more than white ones

My Daddy’s forehead is so big, we don’t need a dining room table. My Daddy’s forehead so big, his hat size is equator. So big, it’s a five-head. Tyra Banks burst into tears when she seen my Daddy’s forehead. My Daddy’s forehead got its own area code. My Daddy baseball cap got stretch marks. My Daddy pillowcase got craters. His eyebrows need GPS to find each other. My Daddy forehead lives in two time zones. Planets confuse my Daddy forehead for the sun. Couch cushions lose quarters in the wrinkles in my Daddy forehead. My Daddy so smart, he fall asleep with the movie on and wake up soon as the credits start to roll. My Daddy so smart, he perform surgery on his own ingrown toenail. Momma was not impressed, but my Daddy got brains. My Daddy know exactly how to drive me to my friend’s house without lookin at no map. My Daddy born here, he so smart, he know the highways like the wrinkles in his forehead. He know the free clinics like the gray hairs on his big ass head. My Daddy so smart, he wear a stethoscope and a white coat. My Daddy drive to work in a minivan only slightly bigger than his forehead, that’s just how my Daddy rolls. My Daddy got swag. My Daddy dance to “Single Ladies” in the hallway. My Daddy drink a small coffee cream and sugar. My Daddy drink a whole can of Red Bull. My Daddy eat a whole pack of sour Skittles and never had a cavity. My Daddy so smart, he got a pullout couch in his office. Got a mini fridge there too. Got a cell phone, and a pager, and a email address where I can leave him messages when he’s not at home. My Daddy’s not home. Momma saves a plate that turns cold. But when my Daddy does come home, he got a office in his bedroom too. Computer screen night light, Momma says she can’t sleep right, but my Daddy got work, my Daddy at work, at home, in the attic, with the TV on, in the dark, from the front yard, through the windows, you can see him working, glass flickering, my house got its own forehead, glinting, sweaty, in the evening, while my Daddy at work, at home, in his own area code, a whole other time zone.

you must be made of money. your parents must have grown on trees. bet you’re black tinged with green. bet you sleep on bags of it. bet your barbies climb it. bet you never wanted. bet you never had to ask. bet you golf. bet you tennis. bet you got a summer house. bet you got a credit card for your 5th birthday. bet you played with bills for toys. bet you chew them up for dinner. bet you spit your black out like tobacco that’s why you talk so bet you listen to green day. bet you ain’t never heard of al. bet your daddy wears a robe around the house. bet his hands are soft as a frog’s belly. bet your house is on a hill. bet the grass is freshly cut. bet you feel like a princess. bet the police protect your house. bet you know their first names. bet your house has a hundred rooms. bet a black lady comes to clean them.