Trini Girl: for lynne
Trini girl
with your grandmother silence
twisted tight into the roots of your copper locks
the follicle a shade darker than the tips
wish you could tell me
exactly where the color hurts
when the great light of mornings
dark showers and see-through
tears are not enough to hold you
together
let me hold you
sometimes
let us
mourn the loss of some lover or other
together
be dazzling beyond the lyric of rhymes we turn
like tricks to convince each other
we are surviving
I know you are surviving
I recognize the Toni gleam
in the slow pivot of emotion you carry in your mother’s
mother’s indifference
spine ramrod straight
backbone upright and unending
body perfect between us
I am grateful for the parallax
of wet in your eye
my own vision is frequently obscured
tears/island love song/ the rescue/the constant
the cooing “hush girl- everything go be alright”
too often you pull away too fast
but when you know my shoulders
have stopped the heaving the sloping
the need for things I have not learnt to say
I wish you would stay longer
sometimes
wish I could ask how the night went
or how you swallow the sorrow alone
the clear uncertain saliva rushing
off your back
How do you stand the lack of warm
in your bed
your white sheets stained
only with the scent of memory
wish I could ask you the questions
we seem to raise
only in metaphors
But I have long learned to hold you
close with clever knots of dyed
hair tied into the known performance
I have accepted your grandmother’s silence
I have learned to recognize the gleam
in the tiny flash of light that no longer haunts me
it just makes me want to hold you
more now
because I know you cry
(Source: staceyannchin.com)
