Brunette
By Mistinguette Smith (’98,’99)

"In Haitian folklore, when a star falls out of the sky, it means someone will die."
Edwidge Danticat


The tin roof rusts
onto my face all night.

The children sleep
like corpses. Even death

makes no sound here
passing house to house.

Hair iron red
your children smell like hunger,

lay close as spoons
for comfort. I dream

crossings, dark and
Atlantic. Metal

groans each time our
single bed frame shifts;

Domi you call
as if to a child

afraid of darkness
and I am. Outside

there is no moonlight
just a bowl of shooting stars

spilled over head.
I count each one

that drops its dust
upon my face, traveling.

Copyright © Mistinguette Smith. All rights reserved. Used with permission of the author.

Mistinguette Smith is from Cleveland, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared in the anthologies Does Your Mama Know: Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories and Other Countries: Voices Rising. Her work as also been included in performance pieces, including Natural Boundaries: Poems of Exploration and Imagination and the film Poetic Healings.

Copyright © 1997-2001 by Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.

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