Dancing on Beat
by Rachelle Parker
Having rhythm is the only way
to remember where home is.
The pounding of wildebeests,
the clacking of calabash for a stew
cooked in a caldron on open flame.
Without the beat of my mother’s land,
I would forget. I would wither
and lay piled high in a heap of skin.
Bones bent under the weight
of what I have come to do,
Calves stretched and knotted
with grief and sorrow.
The rumble of the coast, lit by red gold,
calls in the twilight of morning.
The tight skinned djembe responds.
A wave of thumps tap my shoulders
and my toes. Moving in the midst
of angola seeds, leaves between my teeth.
I am in a hull ready to sprout, again.
Grandma’s Dumplings
by Rachelle Parker
Your apartment is being cleared,
Daughters and their daughters move stuff
into piles they’ve named their own. Your
jewelry box, the tan trench coat. We called it
fake leather. You said “it’s real vinyl.”
Little Momma finally big enough to tie the belt
at her waist, wears it as she packs boxes.
Auntie’s wedding shoes still in your back closet
where tight rolls of singles are found between
books, stuffed in dolls with threaded eyes and hair.
Auntie’s husband comes and moves furniture to
the pick-up he borrowed. Your dresser, vanity,
bed with slats: all to be painted white for a cousin’s
room.
There’s an apron held on the icebox by a magnet
hook. It’s yellow checkered with peaches for pockets.
The kitchen is the only place I want to be. The only
place not cold. The only place you are, still. I feel
a hair follicle pop, a whisker sure to grow on my
chin that I rub with fingers as if lard and flour
are between. The movement for crust and dumplings.
I remove clothes from the line out the window.
The el train passes. The clanging of the rails
louder than the din of mine, mine in the other room.
What will my mother’s daughters sleep on? Why doesn’t
her husband take or fight the other husband. Does
she sit like me being filled by you, in a closet with
the door closed to keep them from taking what’s yours.
Rachelle Parker’s work has appeared in Obsidian: Literature and Art in the African Diaspora, The Adirondack Review, Tupelo Quarterly and others as well as the anthology The BreakBeat Poets Volume 2: Black Girl Magic. She is a fellow of the Tin House Summer Workshop for poetry. “Dancing on Beat” was first published in a journal for The New Jersey Council of Teachers of English and “Grandma’s Dumplings” was first published in Lips.
by Rachelle Parker
Having rhythm is the only way
to remember where home is.
The pounding of wildebeests,
the clacking of calabash for a stew
cooked in a caldron on open flame.
Without the beat of my mother’s land,
I would forget. I would wither
and lay piled high in a heap of skin.
Bones bent under the weight
of what I have come to do,
Calves stretched and knotted
with grief and sorrow.
The rumble of the coast, lit by red gold,
calls in the twilight of morning.
The tight skinned djembe responds.
A wave of thumps tap my shoulders
and my toes. Moving in the midst
of angola seeds, leaves between my teeth.
I am in a hull ready to sprout, again.
Grandma’s Dumplings
by Rachelle Parker
Your apartment is being cleared,
Daughters and their daughters move stuff
into piles they’ve named their own. Your
jewelry box, the tan trench coat. We called it
fake leather. You said “it’s real vinyl.”
Little Momma finally big enough to tie the belt
at her waist, wears it as she packs boxes.
Auntie’s wedding shoes still in your back closet
where tight rolls of singles are found between
books, stuffed in dolls with threaded eyes and hair.
Auntie’s husband comes and moves furniture to
the pick-up he borrowed. Your dresser, vanity,
bed with slats: all to be painted white for a cousin’s
room.
There’s an apron held on the icebox by a magnet
hook. It’s yellow checkered with peaches for pockets.
The kitchen is the only place I want to be. The only
place not cold. The only place you are, still. I feel
a hair follicle pop, a whisker sure to grow on my
chin that I rub with fingers as if lard and flour
are between. The movement for crust and dumplings.
I remove clothes from the line out the window.
The el train passes. The clanging of the rails
louder than the din of mine, mine in the other room.
What will my mother’s daughters sleep on? Why doesn’t
her husband take or fight the other husband. Does
she sit like me being filled by you, in a closet with
the door closed to keep them from taking what’s yours.
Rachelle Parker’s work has appeared in Obsidian: Literature and Art in the African Diaspora, The Adirondack Review, Tupelo Quarterly and others as well as the anthology The BreakBeat Poets Volume 2: Black Girl Magic. She is a fellow of the Tin House Summer Workshop for poetry. “Dancing on Beat” was first published in a journal for The New Jersey Council of Teachers of English and “Grandma’s Dumplings” was first published in Lips.