Tuesday Poem: an earlier version published by The Nerve: Writing Women of 1997 from Virago Press

 
Romare Bearden's "In The Garden"

Sunny in the Cotton Field

looking distant as she bends

to rest the heavy sack on the ground.

Why’s Sunny so dreamy today ?

Her look so far away: probably

back at the house where her baby

cries and nobody’s picking him up.

Sunny’s arms ache, her breasts gone dry

so baby can feed while she’s away.

What is Mama thinking?

Sitting out on the porch, dozing off

when she should be inside.

Sunny Dark Chocolate

Sweet, uh-huh. That’s what she says to herself

when a little white girl on the bus

points her finger, pale as a maggot, at Sunny,

says Look, Mama. Look. 
A lady made of chocolate!

Then the bus goes all 
shamed and silent,

for a heartbeat or two, 

but it’s enough to give

Sunny an ache in her neck, 

from holding her head up

as she lowers herself 

out the back door.

Sunny Tough Hands

from pulling that soft white stuff

out of claws that hold it tight.

Nothing white without a price.

Jim Crow’s told her that, in how many ways?

As soon as she had ears to hear and eyes to see.

Sunny Too Fat

made her brothers laugh,

say her butt quivers

like the skin that holds the river in.

Right, she said.

And if you don’t stop pinching

and brushing past me

I’ll throw myself in there,

and wash away for good!

Ssss, Sunny, come on, 
sit down with me

Mama putting the plates out, 

just two of them,

for biscuits and honey 

and chamomile tea.

Mama always so good at fixing things:

the miserable din of her brothers,

the dogs, the fields receding

in a hum of pleasure,

the two of them drunk like bees.

Sunny Like A Tree

breaks the blue horizon

stuck in the red dirt of this place,

and reaching up to heaven

with pleading limbs.

Well, not really.

She wouldn’t get very far doing that,

what with the bag dragging behind her,

that won’t go filling itself.

But once in a while she looks up

and that big old leafless thing

seems to be on fire as sun sinks into night.

She imagines it calling through God’s thin ether,

telling Him : Look here, Lord.

Is this all you made us for?

When will you put things right?