Pistols n Peaches
By Karma Johnson

Fingers and wrists
steady in the pockets
of a blue print dress, the steel
cool under her black hands,
Miss Mamie calls me
from the photograph___
Child, don’t you know
who I am?

            big tree out back
            yo mama clumb
            ate herself sweetsick

Peaches and pistols, only two
thangs I remember bein told
about Miss Mamie.

She had land. Crackers
kep tryin to run her off
she had sumpm fo ‘em
Sho nuff.

            Carry my two bes friends
            everywhere I go—Mr. Smith
            and Mr. Wesson
            One on each hip, case
            they catch me one hand full
            I use the uth’un.

You, chile, you
Love sweetness like yo mama
Cry when you bite the hard seed
Be hidin yo weapons
with a switch and a grin
just remem’uh I done already
Seen everywhere you gonna see
warned ‘em my great
Granbaby’s comin

You, chile, you
Keep yo hip pockets deep
Everywhere you go / my bones
Yo ammunition

Pistols n Peaches, copyright © Karma Johnson. All rights reserved. Used with permission of the author.

Karma Mayet Johnson has taught Creative Writing to undergraduates at New York University, where she completed her MFA. Born in Chicago of Mississippian heritage, she teaches at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York. Recent poetry has been published in Renaissance Noir, A Gathering of the Tribes, Nocturnes, and Exit the Apple. Karma has appeared as poet, performing artist, and percussionist at diverse venues including Washington D.C.’s Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Joyce Theater in New York, and Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival. Improvisation and Synaesthesia combine in her hybrid-genre performances, involving audiences in participatory ritual whose outcomes are unforeseen and whose elements include digital sound, organic matter, and collective memory.

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