Process

Kitchen

Mommy would warm press my hair

if I begged and pleaded. When I got older,

I bought an electric hot comb and thought I was free,

locking myself in the bathroom so my white roommates

wouldn’t smell my burning hair. 

She got Indian in her

My fingers glide through

my aunt’s wavy black ink;

it spills, loving her shoulders:

Deb, you got such good hair.

She slaps my hand hard, demanding,

What does that mean? 

Afro picks

My father’s was bleached wood, could pull apart

leaving a sheath with tiny holes, a home for the straightened

metal wires. It was a stamp of pride, like the African figurine

bookends with their tight carved coils, supporting my parents’

favorite books: Giovanni, Angelou, Castañeda. 

Jigaboo

The back of the bus was reserved,

like the boys’ affections,

for light-skinned girls with straight or wavy hair.

Dark-skinned and nappy girls need not apply. 

Mixed

I marvel over my husband’s hair—

the lapping curl is his black father’s,

the fineness is his white mom’s.

His hair tells his story, if it can’t be read from his skin.

Aunt Jemima blues

What black woman doesn’t hate to lay a freshly greased head

on a cotton pillowcase?

What black woman doesn’t hesitate to explain her hairscarf

to his white relatives?

What black woman doesn’t hate defining the particulars of herself? 

Soul Sister fro

When the beautician cut out my relaxer, I wasn’t afraid

of who greeted me in the mirror: I see a snapshot of my mother

a 1967 teenager in Little Rock; in the next one, she’s a new mother,

a dusky angel in a bikini with a charcoal halo, honeymooning in Miami, 1973. 

Crowned

Sometimes I wrap my hair. The fabric

gives me a silhouette, a bun

fastened tightly in the back,

tempted my fingers want to spring

what’s bound underneath:

the kinked curls and the complicated naps. 

You tenderheaded?

I am teaching my husband

how the first tooth of a comb

defines the line, how to grease

the exposed scalp, how to massage

thru the kink in each curl.

I am relearning how to cornrow:

knuckles kneading the tender,

separating the rough.

Like I did, he has to learn

to love the plait,

to love the part.