Saffron Stain

Saffron stain.
Golden yellow saffron stain.
Bursting like a shimmering sun
Sitting like a shadow
On your sleeve.

Mark wasn’t there this morning
But now no amount of blotting
Can take it away
Make it stay
And it will sit in your thoughts too.

Saffron stain.
Orangey-yellow palm oil stain
Coloring your palate with flavors of faraway
Its residue’s locked away
On your fingertips
Lick your lips
And it will spread on your tongue too.

It’s waking a faint memory on your brain
It’s leaving a dull ache on your senses
Taking down your fences
With sensations
That you thought you’d kept away

Away goes caution
And in one motion
Stigmas spill
Yellow colored saffron water
D
r
i
p
s

And you've got a stain
Yellow colored, golden orange
Saffron stain
On your...
Sleeve.

Beautiful To Me

Your Black is not charcoal like they say,
Your Black is not darkness like they say,
Your Black is not backward.

Your Black is African, Caribbean; Guinean-Guyanese if you please.
Chiefdoms and kings, warriors and queens:
Your Black is royalty.

Your Black is breathtaking, amazing, awe-striking.
Your Black is revolutionary
Like the Underground Railroad

Your Black is Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth and if anyone asks,
Tell them that’s the truth.

Your Black is Frederick Douglass and Marcus Garvey
Uproarious like Bernie Mac and Steve Harvey.
Your Black is courageous and strong
Your Black is visionary
Like Rosa Parks and MLK

Incendiary like Malcolm X.
Your Black is not ghetto like they say.
Your Black is brilliant and talented
Musical and creative.
Deep like the Blues,
Bold like Jazz,
Your Black’s got character and pizzazz!
It’s Langston Hughes in Harlem
And Josephine in Paris
Your Black is Essence and Ebony,
GQ like Tyler Perry
Your Black is rich and velvety and sweet like a melody,
Textured and curvaceous,

Vivacious, soulful and fabulous:
Your Black is Beautiful to me.

Pink-Palmed Black Hands

So...here goes take 2 of Pink-Palmed Black Hands!! I like this much better though it couldn't have come about without the original version:


Pink-palmed Black Hands. The confusion they used to raise in the eyes of my white friends was unsettling. “How come?” they would say, “How come your palms are so pink?” And for those who didn’t dare ask I knew where the rest of the question would lead. So I took a breath and waited. In a minute I knew it would come tumbling out of their mouths in an awkward mix of wonder and embarrassment. And it never failed: “How come your palms are pink, but your skin is so BLACK?” Slightly irritated, I would turn my palms upward and stare, as if somewhere between the lines etched there I would find an answer good enough to satisfy their curiosity. As if! Their curiosity, I realized, was like the deep end of a river. You just never knew when your feet would touch the sandy bottom. And so I would stare while an eternity passed between us and wonder whether I should be ashamed of such hands. Pink-palmed Black hands. I couldn’t possibly tell my friends that I actually liked my hands, liked my long, slender fingers. I couldn’t tell them that where I came from, Pink-palmed Black hands weren’t an oddity at all. They would never understand. For them everything about my Blackness was peculiar. My hair, which they loved to run their fingers through, was like a ball of yarn; my skin, a lovely caramel tone, they compared to black chocolate or the black bar of soap we used at the morning bath. It was amazing to them that I shouldn’t feel at odds in my own skin. Unthinkable. So I gave their confusion back to them in the bewildered look of my eyes. I told them that I didn’t know. They should go ask God if they wanted the perfect answer. That’s what I thought. But I never dared say. I didn’t want them to be ashamed of their innocent confusion, of their bottomless curiosity. In a fleeting moment before the silence broke, I would think perhaps it was true. Was I not different? Was I not odd? As I grew into my skin, the question gradually leaving my friends’ mouths to settle into their eyes where it could be kept discreetly, I began to realize that my Blackness left people in awe of me. My ‘tan’ skin had the ability to simultaneously amaze and anger them. To produce both jealousy and envy. That was the contradiction contained within my Blackness. I would carry this contradiction around like a weight until I realized it was actually a prize. The beautiful alliteration of these hands would always belong to me. Pink-palmed, Pink-palmed; Pink-palmed Black hands.