Teahouse of the Almighty

by Patricia Smith

  RELATED TO THE BUTTERCUP, BLOOMS IN SPRING

  I.

  What do we do with these huge gifts of the throat and tongue?

  How do we manage?

  II.

  I used to believe that nobody but me could see

  the stars shimmering riot outside my window.

  Mama, my stars are here, I’d say, my stars.

  I welcomed them with a notebook, toothmarked Bic,

  and teeny revolutions crammed into the stingy space

  of a college-ruled line. I wrote until the precise script

  wandered, until the stars blinked themselves dim

  and said good-night Patricia Ann, it’s late even for us

  and it hurts to watch how hard you dream.

  One morning, I woke to find whole pages filled

  with a single word—anemone. Over and over, ens

  and ems straining to stern Palmer Method hilltops.

  Anemone. Anemone.

  Ms. Stein,

  I can’t explain the dizzy I felt the day you chalked

  that word on the board and said,

  Who can pronounce this?

  I wish I could grant you breath here,

  but all I recall is dark hair vaguely flipped, a slight sour

  to you, and the wary smile of a young Jewish girl

  teaching on Walnut Street, just down the block

  from your million miles away.

  Funny, how you twisted me

  by introducing a word

  you figured would stump us all,

  funny how I bellowed the odd accents

  and a light grew slow and unbeckoned behind your eyes.

  That one word was sweet silver on my new tongue,

  it kept coming back to my mouth,

  it was the very first sound I wanted to own,

  to name myself after,

  I wanted no one else to ever utter this.

  Even now, listen to how anemone

  circles, turns round, and surprises itself.

  That day I gave that word a home just under my breath

  and at least a hundred times

  I drew on the drug of it, serving it up to the needing air.

  All this before I knew what it meant.

  (If you never remember feeling that way about a single word,

  sensing a burn in the sheer power of its sound, lift up

  your poetry—all those thick, important pages—and see that

  it is resting on nothing. Then shred those sheets, toss them

  to sky, and lie prone beneath the empty flutter. You must

  own one word completely before you can claim another.)

  Ms. Stein, go ahead,

  make me nine again, take me back

  to when I wasn’t afraid of anything

  except long division and the words Go pull me off a switch,

  when Karen Ford and I pulled our panties down

  and wriggled up against each other for new taboo,

  Ms. Stein, I couldn’t stop writing.

  I wrote myself angled and tress-topped,

  I wrote myself hero, I wrote myself white,

  Cherokee, cheerleader, distressed damsel in Alan Ladd’s arms,

  I wrote myself winged, worshipped, I wrote long stories

  where I was always the primary twinkle, the beacon,

  inevitably envied. I wrote anemone over and over

  in rigid hand, the loops and hilltops perfect.

  Anemone. Anemone.

  When I was nine, the barbershops left their doors open

  and all manner of glorious bullshit spilled out,

  charms and curses spritzed with that mango oil

  that makes black heads shimmer. Balls of sliced nap

  slip sliding the tile, my people razzing and razored,

  the dozens in effect, sentence songs, spontaneous doo-wop

  where any two lines came together to make a corner.

  I was little woman, sweet little crumbsnatcher,

  baby you a pretty one,

  won’t be long before those boys start sniffing around.

  I’d squeeze my eyes shut, loving those hold-on lies.

  I knew these men would have a place in my stories,

  crowns wobbling on sculpted scalp, all their

  ain’t done beens and musta haves and done gone for goods

  languaging the air of the world I had waiting.

  I wrote their bodies arcing over mine,

  their Lucky Struck smooches on the top of my head,

  their lifting me and whirling me ’round

  till nothing made sense but the spin. I wrote about

  that damned heartbreak in their eyes, miles north

  of the heart, how they stayed mad all morning

  at that whiskey bottle. I heard them talk about women

  with both craving and knives in their throats. Together,

  we waited for the stars.

  Come on in here baby, they’d say, always carrying that notebook.

  Come on in here and sit in this chair and write me something pretty.

  Ms. Stein, you unlatched this fever. Wherever you are,

  may you be blessed by whatever God means to you.

  Anemone.

  A sweet beginning I can hide in my mouth.

  I live on its taste when my pen won’t move.

  WHEN DEXTER KING MET JAMES EARL RAY

  There was a tender in them both, a place picked raw.

  As Southern men do, shirts buttoned hard across the throat,

  the clasping of hands that know weather,

  eye linked to eye, unflinching, the flat-toned, muttered how-do.

  How do you?

  And the scripted respect, the pudge-cheeked preacher

  inquiring idly after the dying man’s days.

  Whole wars in them, but just a single rupture.

  Their halos florid, overglowing, some news reporter

  hissing expectantly into a dead silver mic: Say it, say it.

  James Earl liver-toned, wobbling on old bone,

  one lazy eye perked for it.

  It.

  The King rolls his R’s, throats elegant, sweats bullets

  into his collar. Having shaved too keenly, his beard

  is peppered red, whispering blood. And still the pleasantries.

  Exactly how does one go from commenting on the weather

  It’s hot. Awful humid. Smells like more rain to asking did

  you frame my father’s head in your gun sight,

  did you empty his dinner chair,

  lonely my nights,

  pull back on that trigger?

  Go on, get it out, boy. I’m dying heah.

  Cameras whir.

  The men are like fools, silent, damned respectful,

  exactly a yardstick between them. And it’s the windup, the pitch:

  Sir, I have to ask you, sir, my kind sir, excuse me,

  I hate to bother you sir, but I have to ask for the record,

  Did you kill my father?

  And if the answer is yes, will there be a throttling, an errant

  sob, a small silver pistol slipped from an inside pocket?

  And if the answer is no, will there be a throttling, an errant

  sob, a small silver pistol slipped from an inside pocket?

  Time has a way of growing things all huge,

  lifting up our lives to shove in the splinter.

  But, surprisingly, James Earl resists double take, and the wide-eye.

  No, I didn’t. No, sir. No.

  That settles it then, that settles it.

  And we’re locked on this limp drama long after the credits roll

  and Hollywood Squares has taken over,

  long after the network has anthemed and dimmed to snow.

  Time for some corn chips and a brew.

  Time to fall asleep with a clear head.

  Time to celebrate the slow sweet of Southern men.

  It’s time
to rejoice in the fact that nobody killed nobody,

  and high time to forget that somebody died anyway.

  ALL HIS DISTRESSING DISGUISES

  “Every day, I see Jesus Christ in all His distressing disguises.”

  —Mother Teresa

  Which explains why I am tempted to kiss the hand

  of the flushed minion shoving me aside for a perch

  on the # 4. There is much immediate in him,

  so much otherwise and elsewhere, I presume

  he is famous in some spectacular way, who can say?

  I believe that holy rests in the simple.

  So I scan the skin of the Post vendor looking

  for flecks of gold, I plot to touch the singed fingers

  of the fry cook as he passes me eggs done wrong.

  I listen for wisdom in the flailing screech of the B-boy

  whose earbuds transport him to a place where

  swagger is sanctified. Noting my brash appraisal,

  he thrusts his little sex forward, which could indeed

  be a blessing of sorts. The idea I pray toward could

  be the drama critic with a pinky toe fetish

  or the bottle of whiskey left burning at his bedside.

  Or maybe my God is the man who heat-seeks

  my areolas, forgets my birth, leaves clumps of Kung Pao

  in the sink to tempt Westchester’s reticent roaches.

  He is so simply holy, spent, and slightly crazed

  after climax. Damn, he does glow. How ironic

  if my savior were a mere Bruce, his New England

  stammer blessing my quest, kinking the gifted halo.

  TEAHOUSE OF THE ALMIGHTY

  July 17, 2002, Brockton, MA

  Peppermint bites at the back of the teeth,

  heat prickles points on an unready tongue.

  The solemn eyes of Jesus contemplate from

  black light: My child, you will conquer the spice.

  You will swallow. Every blend, from rose hip

  to green, is sharp saccharine and colored

  like blood. The menu, scrawled in Sharpie

  on gray shirt cardboard, is blotched with

  smoke, and, anyway, nothing has a price.

  Splintered wood seats, carved across with

  curses and desperate two-syllabled prayers,

  strain to hold the quivering weight of

  the devoted and the hard questions poised

  by their thirst. Wherever it is not stained

  or peeled back or missing, the tile floor

  is scarred with sloping Scripture written

  from the position of the knees—As far as

  the east is from the west, so Jar hath he

  removed our transgressions from us.

  Men with rheumy gazes arc over teacups,

  sip cleansing and penance. Their suit coats,

  once special at Sears, are ironed hard,

  growing too airy, are inevitably brown.

  The waitress, Glorie, a spit-curled kingdom,

  is spritzed, flip-tongued, ripped too suddenly

  from a Southern soil. She say: ’Fore you ask

  what we got here is Domino sugar, thick cream.

  From a seat near the reeking John, a crinkled

  alto quavers, a choir by its ownself: I love

  the Lord, he heard my cry. Miss Glorie stops,

  shows the palm of her hand to heaven.

  All faith, it is believed, lies in testimony.

  The voice is old church, teetering, dim-visioned,

  pink foam rollers in thin, hard-oiled strands.

  It is northbound Greyhound, shucked beans,

  buttercake, chicken necks in waxed paper,

  trapped against their own oil. The voice belongs

  to the m’dear of red dust, to our daily dying mothers,

  to every single city’s west side. It wears aged lace

  and A-lines hemmed with masking tape.

  The woman wails sanctified because the heat

  has singed her fingers, because a huge empty

  sits across from her and breathes a little death

  onto the folds of her face. I’ll take another cup,

  she says. I believe I will. But don’t be scared,

  Glorie, make it hot. Put some fire under it.

  Lord can’t tell I’m here ‘less I holla out loud.

  She rocks the day dim, sips slow, props the comma

  of her spine against the hard wood. But she snaps

  straight whenever the door opens.

  He’s gon’ come.

  He knows the place.

  A man gets thirsty.

  RUNNING FOR ARETHA

  for Louis Brown, Boston

  I blew out my speakers today listening to Aretha

  sing gospel. “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”

  crackled and popped until finally the tweeters

  smoked and the room grew silent, although,

  as my mama would say, The spirit kept kickin’.

  Humming fitfully between sips of spiced tea,

  I decided that salvation didn’t need a soundtrack.

  Boston is holding its breath, flirting with snow.

  Upstairs, plugged into M.C. somebody, my son

  is oblivious to headlines. The world is a gift,

  just waiting for his fingers to loose the ribbon.

  He won’t find out until later that a boy with his

  face, his swagger, his common veil, died crumpled

  on a Dorchester street. He will turn away from

  tonight’s filmed probings into the boy’s short stay,

  stutterings from stunned grandmammas,

  neighbors slowly shaking their heads. He’ll pretend

  not to see the clip of the paramedics screaming

  obscenities at the boy’s heart, turning its stubborn

  key with their fists. Want anything, Ma? he’ll ask

  from the kitchen, where he has skulked for shelter,

  for a meal of sugar and bread to block his throat.

  The crisp, metallic stench of the busted speakers

  reminds me that there are other things to do.

  My computer hums seductively.

  My husband hints that he may want to argue about sex.

  I think about starting a fire, but don’t think I can stand

  the way the paper curls, snaps, and dissolves into ash.

  So I climb the stairs to my son’s room,

  rest my head against the door’s cold wood,

  listen to the muffled roars of rappers. But I don’t knock.

  He deserves one more moment of not knowing that boy’s face,

  how I ran to Aretha’s side, how tight the ribbon is tied.

  WHEN THE BURNING BEGINS

  for Otis Douglas Smith, my father

  The recipe for hot water cornbread is simple:

  Cornmeal, hot water. Mix till sluggish,

  then dollop in a sizzling skillet.

  When you smell the burning begin, flip it.

  When you smell the burning begin again,

  dump it onto a plate. You’ve got to wait

  for the burning and get it just right.

  Before the bread cools down,

  smear it with sweet salted butter

  and smash it with your fingers,

  crumple it up in a bowl

  of collard greens or buttermilk,

  forget that I’m telling you it’s the first thing

  I ever cooked, that my daddy was laughing

  and breathing and no bullet in his head

  when he taught me.

  Mix it till it looks like quicksand, he’d say.

  Till it moves like a slow song sounds.

  We’d sit there in the kitchen, licking our fingers

  and laughing at my mother,

  who was probably scrubbing something with bleach,

  or watching Bonanza,

  or thinking how stup
id it was to be burning

  that nasty old bread in that cast iron skillet.

  When I told her that I’d made my first-ever pan

  of hot water cornbread, and that my daddy

  had branded it glorious, she sniffed and kept

  mopping the floor over and over in the same place.

  So here’s how you do it:

  You take out a bowl, like the one

  we had with blue flowers and only one crack,

  you put the cornmeal in it.

  Then you turn on the hot water and you let it run

  while you tell the story about the boy

  who kissed your cheek after school

  or about how you really want to be a reporter

  instead of a teacher or nurse like Mama said,

  and the water keeps running while Daddy says

  You will be a wonderful writer

  and you will be famous someday and when

  you get famous, if I wrote you a letter and

  sent you some money, would you write about me?

  and he is laughing and breathing and no bullet

  in his head. So you let the water run into this mix

  till it moves like mud moves at the bottom of a river,

  which is another thing Daddy said, and even though

  I’d never even seen a river,

  I knew exactly what he meant.

  Then you turn the fire way up under the skillet,

  and you pour in this mix

  that moves like mud moves at the bottom of a river,

  like quicksand, like slow song sounds.

  That stuff pops something awful when it first hits

  that blazing skillet, and sometimes Daddy and I

  would dance to those angry pop sounds,

  he’d let me rest my feet on top of his

  while we waltzed around the kitchen

  and my mother huffed and puffed

  on the other side of the door. When you are famous,

  Daddy asks me, will you write about dancing

  in the kitchen with your father?

  I say everything I write will be about you,

  then you will be famous too. And we dip and swirl

  and spin, but then he stops.

  And sniffs the air.

  The thing you have to remember

  about hot water cornbread

  is to wait for the burning

  so you know when to flip it, and then again

  so you know when it’s crusty and done.

  Then eat it the way we did,

  with our fingers,

  our feet still tingling from dancing.

  But remember that sometimes the burning

  takes such a long time,

  and in that time,

  sometimes,

  poems are born.