Help
BY VALENCIA ROBIN
Oh, how I long to know the truth
—Nina Simone
So many distractions. Today the popular tourist spot
I always have to warn my out-of-town guests about,
the famous house they always want to see anyway,
have to see perhaps, have to hear, listen
to the story of its celebrated owner,
all the careful details of his life in that legendary house
and marvel, truly marvel (although why so surprised?)
at how rarely we’ll hear the words plantation or enslaved
men, women and children. I watch the class of high schoolers
ahead of us, their sullen, resentful Black faces
reminding me of my sullen, resentful Black face
forty years earlier, resisting with no idea I was
part of the resistance, no clue that rolling my eyes
was saving me, that there are all kinds of lifeboats
—long walks after school, the art I spent hours making
that I never called art or if I was lucky,
a book or CD from the public library (Nina,
Audre Lorde, Greg Tate), the mother lodes
I just happened to stumble on—the teachers
I never found at school, the ones who took me to church,
put me to work.
Confessions
BY VALENCIA ROBIN
I confess when I watch the big award shows on TV
I still think that could be me up there thanking people,
my mother, my grandmother, my entire collective
in the hereafter screaming, beaming down to join me,
my father wondering if he can come, too.
I admit to everything including wanting to kidnap
the young dread knocked out in front of the Paramount
and not setting him free until he’s marriage material. I know
I should want to send him back to his community
to start a farmers’ market or space program, to help us
expand into previously unknown aspects of being.
But first I want him to take my little neighbor to a play.
I’m the person who sees the happy baby and aches
to climb into the mother’s lap, who routinely falls for trees,
their wide, open arms beckoning. My painting helps,
though most days it’s just my dream of painting. Last night
this woman kept referring to her father as daddy
—daddy this, daddy that—as if he was everybody’s daddy.
My current form of self-medication are the hours between 6 and 8 AM,
the day slowly dressing itself, the light touching me. Sometimes
I watch the news, sometimes I love all that hate. Then there’s beauty
(with the little b) that heartless time suck. Still—all my life
I’ve been screaming Daddy, daddy! and so many people
—friends, strangers—have come running.
