Twice-over married, he. An egg scrambled to burnt,
mere crumbs from month-old bread, dregs of
Southern coffee. Milt. Curdled, 57, material for a
story. The story? Milt took a deep breath, leaned
over Ida, sitting on her mother’s porch swing,
surrounded by the seductions of the
south—dogwoods, doe-eyed willows, whistling
kettles, medallion, meddling mothers, showstar,
showers, derby melampodiums, yes, magnolias
blossomed, viburnum, hydrangea, Jim Dandy,
lemonberry pie, iced tea, hair grease, church girl
smells, serviceberries. Seduced, Milt, muttered in
a purr: “Why don’t you go on & marry me, gal?” Ida
at eighteen fanned her face, batted her eyes,
acquiesced. A virgin for he, Milt nearly lost his
carefully combed come hither smile. That Ida: no
evidence of male matter coating her pores or the
deep places in her throat. Impressionable. She?
The real ache: a white man has ruffled her skirts,
placed his hand in spaces gaspable. A quick dip of
his quill into her inkpot, stained, blurred, he
forgot to blot. Oh, the hardships that will
ensue, the church pews whispered, sidewalks
crackled with gossip, hand fans singed, the sun
conducted morning hymnals composed of stage dramas
& teeth-sucking rumor-mongering. Ida cried as much
as she bled. With green-grey eyes, red-checkered
bowtie, Milt, another product of a white man who’d
stepped (read: raped, begged, promised, sauntered)
in Milt’s momma’s property. Ida traced Christ
across her belly for this man. No need to explain
how that baby she was already carrying came out so
fair.
*
Milt’s sperm, palimpsest,
write
your sign across Ida’s
uterus, no blooms.
*
She
of the secret
tryst
with white man, sperm lands;
snow
before melting.
*
Wander into you,
I
pick through a forest of
family tales. Seek
*
you.
Did he take you?
Did
you give yourself to him?
Did
you watch your heart
*
die,
the way cotton
turns
dark, shrivels, refuses to
bear
dusky white seeds?
