May I Ask

May I ask you who your grandmother died Her blackness you pretended we’d assume a servant’s      in the photograph May I ask did she die herself? I know you all light under an umbrella     don’t tan and she could be seen as she had been made too dark for what the son do. I saw her years ago after she died And again today in the market I asked her     I had to know if she was who I knew    ... “Only two things you really has to— tha’s to stay black and die.” Black, yes, but if black leads some to pretend that you have died except you’re black and alive who are you? She is as hundreds of years old as the stories of the lies of grandmothers in the cellar    ... May I ask who your grandmother      died if she died herself?