our town: the leavings
(for kjm)
by Opal Moore(‘97, ‘98, ‘01)

for kjm just go straight.
follow this path and hang a left
at the crossroad, they say.
can’t miss it.
you can trust the men
there, easy walking hard eyed
knuckle-bulges in their pockets
karats in their mouths. but

don’t mess with
the women
white gloved, stern faced,
featherless hats planted
on firm curls
on tuesdays you may find them
dipping wafers in their coffee
at the goldblatts.
they will look at you
with expectation-

               what will you steal from us today
               to throw it away?
               what do you know? what
               do you want to know-
               yes, yes, it was bedlam that made us-
               and you?
               will you lick the sweat from our hands
               for salt?

they never say
this road is the dust of promises, the rocks-
a rubble of mothers and men.
their bones cannot comfort.
these tossed and remnant faces don’t mean
to scowl. scattered limbs point this way
or that- helplessly.

yet, they do not hinder me-
what they do not tell me
is my inheritance. later
I will call it love.

Copyright © Opal Moore. All right reserved. Used by permission of the author

Opal Moore's poetry and fiction have appeared in various journals and anthologies, including African American Review , Callaloo, noctures: (re)view of the literary arts, and Furious Flower: African American Poetry from the Black Arts Movement to the Present. Her collection of poems, Lot's Daughters (Third World Press, 2004), is a meditation on black women in portraits. Her "Children of Middle Passage," is a collaboration the painter and performance artist, Arturo Lindsay. A Fulbright Scholar, Moore is Chair of the English Department at Spelman College.

Copyright © 1997-2004 by Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.

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