Black Beauties, or: from Mali to East Africa, spanning a continent The short, heavy, gleaming cashier -- I was afraid to say
why -- I was so distracted -- stunned almost --
by the historic hairdo she wore so . . . well,
it reminded me so strongly of Mali, in the pottery age:
the tiles and temples; why not harken to that ancient library?
Her body, overripe fruit, straining at the rind,
spanning a continent. But
twisted braids coiled smartly -- a cone, taller than her head --
regal, if pulled off, or even alluded to, with foresight.
And this pale old white-woman
could not speak
how much I liked her anti-fashion . . .
And I remember how the young American in Ki-Swahili, a class I was not in
proudly announced her name was "_____," unknowing
the word meant "snake" in English -- with
appropriate connotations in the native form:
a declension divorced from reason
absolved in slavery.
Sometimes it strangles to be culturally relevant.
How lost, I left without what I came in for.
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