The Afterbirth, 1931

We were a Colored Clan of Kinfolk Who threw soil      not salt Over our shoulders Who tendered close the bible Who grew and passed around the almanac at night So we would know What to plant at first light Black soil and sweet brown sorghum From the every morning biscuits Mama Susan fixed Dripping and mixing Up under our fingernails A secret salve Just like any other Living simple And keeping to our proud selves Quite aware of night riders Quite aware of men with Politicious smiles Cologned with kerosene and match Aware of just whose feet Walked across our tin roofs at night We were such light sleepers Such long distance believers We were a family pregnant Whose water had broke And for once there was ham money ’Bacca money So we thought to do better by ourselves To begin our next row We would go and get him Because he was medically degreed in baby bringing Because he was young and white and handsome And because of that Had been neighbor to more knowledge Than us way back behind The country’s proud but inferior lines And because he came with his papers in his pocket So convincing      so soon After his ivy graduation Asking us hadn’t we heard Telling us times had changed And the midwife wasn’t safe anymore Even though we had all been caught By tried and true Black Grannies Who lay ax blade sharp side up And water pan underneath the bed To cut the pain To cool the fever We were a Pregnant Clan of Kinfolk Caught with water running down our legs Old family say they remember Going to fetch him Telling him that it was time That he should come now But he didn’t show right away Not right away But came when he wanted The next day After his breakfast But what more Could we colored country folk ever want Even if we had to watch the road all night for him Even if we had to not let her push too hard When he finally came He had his papers on him Something with one of those pretty shiny seals Old family say they can remember Somethin’ just wasn’t right But we opened the screen for him anyway Trusting And tendering close what the Good Book Had told us all our lives to do Then we made him a path Where he put his hand up      then inside My grandmother’s womb Her precious private pleasing place Somewhere he probably didn’t want to touch Then he pulled my daddy through Somebody he probably didn’t care to reach for And from the first he pulled him wrong And wrong Shattered his collarbone And snapped his soft baby foot in half And smashed the cartilage in his infant hand Wringing Their own sun baked arms Old timey family Remember him well Say they knew somethin’ wasn’t right As he came through the door A day later His breakfast digested now Somethin’ just wasn’t right How he had two waters on him One sweet      one sour-mash One trying to throw snow quilt over the other As he un-carefully As drunkenly He with his papers on him still Stood there turning a brown baby into blue Un-magically And right before our eyes Hope and Pray Hope and Pray Then he packed his bag and      left With all of his official training And gathered up gold stars      left The Virginia land of Cumberland County He left and forgot He left and didn’t remember The afterbirth inside Carlene Godwin Finney To clabber Gangrene Close down Her place Her precious private pleasing place To fill the house to the rafters Up past the dimpled tin roof With a rotting smell That stayed for nine days That mortgaged a room In our memories And did not die with her We were a Brown and Pregnant Family And he would’ve remembered his schoolin’ And left his bottle Recollected his manners And brought his right mind Had another klan called him to their bedside He would’ve come right away He would’ve never had liquor on his breath If the color of my daddy’s broken limbs Had matched the color of his own but We were a Colored Clan of Kinfolk We should’ve met him at the door Should’ve told him lean first into the rusty screen Made him open up his mouth and blow Breathe out right there Into all of our brown and lined up faces In wait of his worthiness Then just for good measure Should’ve made him blow once again Into Papa Josh’s truth telling jar Just to be sure Should’ve let Mama Sally Then Aunt Nanny Then lastly Aunt Mary Give him the final once over And hold his sterile hands Down to the firelight to check Just like she checked our own every night Before supper Before we were allowed to sit At her very particular table We could’ve let Aunt Ira clutch him by his chin Enter and leave through her eyes Just like how she came and went through us Everyday at her leisure She would’ve took care to notice As she traveled all up and through him Any shaking      any sweating And caught his incapable belligerent incompetence In time Oh Jesus We should’ve let Grandpop Robert Have him from the first Should’ve let him pick him up By the back of his pants And swirl him around Just like he picked us up And swirled us around Anytime he caught us lying or lazy Or being less than what we were We should’ve let Grandpop Loose on him from the start And he would’ve held him up High eye to the sun And looked straight through him Just like he held us up And then we would have known first Like he always knew first And brought to us The very map of his heart Then we would have known Just what his intentions were With our Carlene Before we knew his name Or cared about his many degrees Before he dared reach up      then inside Our family’s brown globe While we stood there Some of us throwing good black soil With one hand Some of us tending close The Good Book with the other Believing and trusting We were doing better By this one Standing there Waterfalls running Screaming whitewater rapids Down our pants legs Down our pantaloons To our many selves All the while Praying hard That maybe we were wrong (please make us wrong) One hundred proof Smelled the same as Isopropyl