WEBVTT

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And I think some
of these subjects,

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that we need to tackle,
are very difficult.

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I think Toni Morrison
did it in Beloved.

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I don't know if
you've read Beloved

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but the mother in Beloved kills
her baby, kills her child.

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And it's about remembering,
bringing that child back.

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This poem is called
"Dead Baby Speaks."

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And I begin with a quote from
Toni Morrison from Beloved.

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"Everybody knew
what she was called

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but nobody anywhere
knew her name.

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Disremembered and
unaccounted for,

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she can not be lost because
no one is looking for her.

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And even if they were,
how could they call her

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when they don't know her name?"

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"I am taking in,
taking in, like a lump

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of a dead baby on the floor.

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Mama kicks me.

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I don't feel anything.

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I am taking in, taking in.

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I am reading newspapers.

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I am seeing films.

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I am reading poetry.

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I am listening to
psychiatrists, friends.

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Someone knows the way.

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Someone will be my mother
and tell me what to think.

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The dead baby wants to scream.

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The dead baby wants
to drink warm milk.

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The dead baby wants to go
to lunch with her mother,

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woman to woman, say, I can't
always say the right thing.

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Sometimes I've got to
say what feels best.

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I'm not perfect but I will
not be a lump on the floor.

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The dead baby wants
to kick her mother.

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The dead baby wants her
mother to lie down and let

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herself be kicked.

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Why not?

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She let father do it.

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How to separate me from the
dead baby, my mother from me,

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my mother from the dead baby?

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Nothing is expected.

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Nothing is expected of you.

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You don't have to
do this or say that.

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Nothing is known.

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Be who you are.

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A little defiance,
a little defense.

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Say if you want.

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I lifted up a little.

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There is that stunned
moment when she shuts up

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and lets me speak.

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I have nothing to say.

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Then I say, rotten
mother, who opened

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your legs like iron gates and
forced me into this prison.

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Who lay among lilies and pressed
me to your breasts, saying,

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I will never be alone again.

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Who wanted my soul for
company, used my body

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in the place of your soul.

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Who brought me up to the
surface by straining off

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the rich dark broth
until what remained

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was as vaporous as the
shadow of a shadow.

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Whose breasts were
bruised fruits, whose legs

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were swollen tree trunks.

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But when you were shaken,
only one red apple fell.

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Whose genitals hold me tethered,
a string like a primate's tail

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so that I am your
monkey in the red suit.

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You are my organ grinder.

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Cease your desperate paid music.

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If you say, do not write
about me, I will write more.

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There are many more
mouths to feed than yours.

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My life is juice
pouring out of me.

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Let it find a channel.

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I could knuckle
under and be good.

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I could pray for her and
turn the other cheek.

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I could live in her
house with her sickness,

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like a stinking body
in the stairwell.

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I could bake bread
until my hands puff up.

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I could sweep the floor.

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I could suck misery out of
my teeth like stringy meat.

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I could poison her
with a plate of sorrow.

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I could leave the door
open on her corpse

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so that no breath would warm
her back to resurrection.

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I could throw
myself at her feet.

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I could languish, like
a whore in colored rags.

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I could lie as still
as a still life.

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I could be cut up and
served on her table.

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I could go to my father
and beg for her life.

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I could dance the seven
veils while she escapes.

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I could give to the poor.

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I could close my legs
like a hardened corpse.

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I could grow into a hag and
compare myself to her pictures.

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I could eat her
while she's sleeping.

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I could put her in the oven and
burn her into a lace cookie.

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I could roar like
a gored dragon.

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I could come crawling
like a sexless husband.

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I could beg her to touch the
scratch between my legs, which

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should open in a flower.

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Every time I question myself, I
say, mother did not believe me.

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She thought I was making
up my life to torture her.

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I take off the layers
of pain for her

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to see the teeth
marks in my soul.

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She thinks I can be born fresh
once my rotten desires are

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removed, the desire to
touch, the desire to speak.

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I could clean house
until it is empty.

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I could put everything
in the right place.

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[AUDIO OUT] --weeping in church
with a light on her face.

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I could love her stinking
on the cot of Ben Gay,

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waiting for my father to come.

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I could love her
roaming from room

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to room in the dark with a
blanket on, trying to be quiet.

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I could love her eating
at night, hungrily,

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slowly going back for seconds.

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I could love her white breasts.

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I could love her belly of scars.

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I could love her insides,
which are half of a woman's.

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I could love her with
a dead baby in her.

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I could love her, though
the dead baby could be me.

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I could love her, even if she
wants some part of me dead,

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some part that invades
her with sorrow.

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She never understands.

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For the mystery
of her childhood.

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For being too white
and too Black.

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For being robbed of a father.

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For wearing the cast-off
clothes of the rich.

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For eating figs and cream
on silver that wasn't hers.

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For putting the comb and brush
neatly in place because they

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were the only things she owned.

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For learning to make up lies
and make everything pretty.

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She never believed her own body.

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I could love her
ocean-black hair.

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I could love it in a braid
like a long black chain.

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I could love her
kneeling over the tub,

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cleaning the scum
out with a rag.

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I could love her trying to hit
the flying roach with a shoe.

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I could love her
standing in the doorway,

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thinking she's made
the wrong choice.

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I could love her as I love
myself, imperfect mother.

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Worse was done to me, she
said, and I never told.

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I always told in the
body, out the mouth.

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Everything from
insults to penises

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needed words to make it real.

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Be still, you make me suffer.

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I thought it was
me who would die.

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I thought silence was a
blessing and I was a saint.

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I was prepared for
a higher calling.

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I have the key in my hand.

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The breath goes in and out.

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Sever the mother.

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Blow her away like talc.

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The breath, the body,
this is where I begin.

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We are fighting for my silver
soul, like Jacob and the angel.

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You are the angel, I am the
young boy fighting for my life.

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I am the angel, you
are the young boy

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fighting for your life.

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We mirror each other like a
beautiful face in the river.

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Half of us is drowned,
half of us is light.

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I reach into your soul and
pull out the bone of my life.

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My mother is on my
mouth like a gold frog.

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Be good, be good.

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She points her finger,
that old spinster teacher.

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She points her
stick at my tongue.

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She knocks some sense into
it across its red knuckle.

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Half of my tongue
hangs like a limp dick,

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a flag of my mother's country.

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Half rises like a bridge.

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Words might leap across
that great divide.

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A daredevil driver.

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But I am the driver,
and my mother

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is peeping out of the back like
a baby, her eyes big and black

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with fear.

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My mother is on my
mouth like a gold frog.

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She is sparkling
and quick as sin,

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with terrible humped breasts
that nothing can suck at.

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The black spots on her are
universes you could walk on,

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if she were flat and
sound as a board.

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I take her on my tongue like
a lozenge and roll her around.

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Then I bite down."

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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Wow.

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Thank you very much.

00:10:09.490 --> 00:10:13.610 align:middle line:90%


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That's a hard poem.

00:10:14.450 --> 00:10:17.300 align:middle line:90%


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Wow.

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Thank you.

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I think I'm writing
some more and I'm

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starting to understand
that poem better now.

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