Brown Girl Dreaming

Because you’re colored, my grandfather says.

And just as good and bright and beautiful and free

as anybody.

And nobody colored in the South is stopping,

my grandfather says,

until everybody knows what’s true.

, my grandmother says.

Best not to ask for more than that.

Hmph, my grandfather says. And goes back

to working the land, pulling from it all we need

and more than that.

And when we are called by our names

my grandmother

makes them all one

HopeDellJackie

but my grandfather

takes his sweet time, saying each

as if he has all day long

or a whole lifetime.

Your brother

my mother heard her own mother say

and then there was only a roaring in the air around her

a new pain where once there wasn’t pain

a hollowness where only minutes before

she had been whole.

Somewhere in my brain

each laugh, tear and lullaby

becomes memory.

You’ll face this in your life someday,

my mother will tell us

over and over again.

A moment when you walk into a room and

no one there is like you.

It’ll be scary sometimes. But think of William Woodson

and you’ll be all right.

This is the way,my mother said,

of every baby’s hand.

I do not know if these hands will become

Malcolm’s—raised and fisted

or Martin’s—open and asking

or James’s—curled around a pen.

I do not know if these hands will be

Rosa’s

or Ruby’s

gently gloved

and fiercely folded

calmly in a lap,

on a desk,

around a book,

ready

to change the world . . .