Anything, Really by Aïcha Martine: A Poet in Residence, Day One
I never really paid attention to my grandmother’s feet
Forgot exactly how the skin arches and molds around the toes
And those toes, what do they look like
I try to remember the shape and feel of her hands
I’ve been told mine look like hers, but cannot really be sure
I didn’t watch when she’d take them into hers and press
That dry shock of a handshake, strong enough to knead the millet for the thiéré, to deal sharp blows to the back of misbehaving little heads, to braid kinky hair into soaring works of art
I think of doing those things too, but I cannot trust the hearsay and the assurance of our likeness
So I do them timidly
Which is precisely who she was not
What did her eyes look, really look like
She has my father’s, but there were nuances
Did he get her gap teeth from her too
I come close to forming a picture, never close enough
I don’t know whether to be proud of my gait, the cadence of my sentences, the roll of my tired shoulders, won’t be, until and unless I know how deeply rooted they are, and where
Which is to say I never might
I would have paid attention, but how could I know
How quickly the effigy
Would slip away before her time
I take pictures, lots of pictures
I draw with fevered hope
That I might seal my fingers around that silky water
Before it, too, uproots and washes her from me
………………..
A. Martine is a trilingual writer, musician and artist of color who goes where the waves take her. She might have been a kraken in a past life. She's an Assistant Editor at Reckoning Press and a co-Editor-in-Chief and Producer of The Nasiona. Her collection AT SEA was shortlisted for the 2019 Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize. Some words found or forthcoming in: Déraciné, The Rumpus, Bright Wall/Dark Room, Metaphorosis, South Broadway Ghost Society, Gone Lawn, Rogue Agent, Boston Accent Lit, Porridge Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Figure 1, Willawaw, Tenderness Lit.
Twitter: @Maelllstrom