As long as Othello and Shylock are needed, they are called by their names.
When they are rejected, they become, simply, “Jew” and “Moor.”
— Shaul Bassi
Listen, old friend, centuries ago
we were munching on government cheese
when Shakespeare’s spider crawled out
from one of the Swiss holes to play.
Our mamas were away, passing a joint
in the bathroom they’d freshly spackled.
Your mama helped mine part the Moorish
roots of her scalp. They’d both dyed
their hair with Black Cherry Kool Aid,
they left us the pitcher, the ham and cheese
Lunchables, a box TV playing Superman
the Animated Series, the spider biting
you before it even wanted me. All the fairy tales
I could spin in Venice, the spider spoke slow,
for a Black or a Jew. The spider told us money grew
inside teeth—that we’d be articulate without ours.
Gentle boys, gentle boys, he said. How will you afford
to be men in plays that kill you before curtain rise?
My master, Mr. Shakespeare, needs his villains
and you, dear boys, owe your poor mothers in gold.
So, taking turns, we string tied each of our dental crowns
to your bedroom doorknob and slammed
slammed slammed until a grin of discarded teeth
stood like Stonehenge in our palms.
With the sharpness of your mouth gone,
you mumbled a man’s soliloquy for the spider, but
I couldn’t understand you. I was too busy
worrying about fresh blood on the carpet.
Mama’s gonna beat my ass,
Mama’s
gonna beat
my ass
I stammered lonely
while you
dropped
your teeth
till loosing
count
into all eight hands
of that noble false widow.
Our mamas thought we’d bond over our speech
impediments and sense for retribution. And, Shy,
I know we can’t blame them. I know
we can’t blame them
for every lying promise slid beneath the pillow
of a Black or Jewish child.
But I do wish our mamas had found us sooner—
beat some sense into us before we sold our speech
for a white man’s coins and claps—
stopped us before you turned to shush me
in a toothless babble,
and I, with only my gums,
bit you
with the angriest love
my mouth
had left.
Steam-Drill’s tongue tastes like the afterash of a witch burning
Cedar crisps spark in the air
in the air Steam-Drill tells me her father invented her to outwork
negros and migrants She challenges me with who will last longer
I beg with a stammer
for my life’s end to touch me as careful as Nothing touches a long lost memory
Excuse me for my slipping, my
words, the words stack and stack Firewood
and chicken blood and saw
-dust This is all my hands are trusted to touch Trust
a touch If I blew her hair, her hair would dandelion Please
go slowly I fell in love
with the jazz of her clack jazz, the
man-maker
machine We hop in the pocket of a drumming hammer sing
after me, love na-na, na na na-na, na na
haaay now haaay now
Junebug crawlin’ on the salty grass Junebugs crawling on the salty grass
play tender play tender
Swamp frog jumps til he bust his ass Swamp frog jump till he bust his ass
What is this mess you have me singing, boy?
Seeing what I could get away with.
My go-to sin is telling her factoids as she tries to seduce me. Honey,
did you know Ryan Coogler based Sinners on the legend of Robert Johnson,
a Mississippi bluesman who sold his soul for the Devil’s guitar lessons?
Whew, Mar, truly the spiciest of dirty talk. She switches HBO off, says,
Blah blah blah masculinity. Blah blah blah lynching. Her impressions of me
—always spot on. Mr. Devil, what’s the name of this man you change me into
for sex? Muddled little man: he buys luxury lube “to smooth her ride” (ew)
and pillow talk cue cards, but sees himself “too man” to want neck kisses.
Fucking. Swimming. I struggle to lose control. We wait for bedtime to have
swim lessons in the communal pool. I didn’t want brown neighbor kids to watch
themselves in me, struggling to swim at 23. Don’t be embarrassed, I’m assured. Not
everyone learns young. No one taught you to fill your lungs. You’ll float. I promise.
after Bri Chapman
“Retcon” (short for “Retroactive Continuity”) replaces a character’s history with
something new, re-writing the canon. For example, instead of Spider-Man being bitten
by a spider on a high school trip, he will now be bitten while cleaning his Auntie’s attic.
From their hospital ward beds, the mothers of my family
are Steve Ditko outlining my potential, assuring me
that i was born spider-bitten by hip-hop and delirium—[No.
Retcon] that i was born as Left Eye’s verse on “Waterfalls”
congealing inside my Mama’s ears. [No, retcon]
i was born as what broke Mama, born
because she was broke and crime fighting
didn’t pay the light bills. i was born
from her college days, tweezing off moles, letting
the TJC soccer team carry bookbags to her locker
as she carried me inside the Dean’s office
to melody her tone and plea for an academic break
to raise her son. And who was she kidding sketching
those fantasies? And [panel break]
who was i kidding living in the sticks?
Smushing my Sketchers’ heels into the mouths of
moving box cockroaches made me no less poor.
[gutter space]
Before my disc jockey super strength set in
i was sponge rollers on a knucklehead
P.E. kickball pipsqueak, FitnessGram
PACER Test washout. [speech bubble]
Look, Coach, how many more pushups before
that James Harden cash swings in and
i can buy Mama a Barbie Mansion?
[splash page]
i was Mama’s ignorance of my eyes
as i watched her begging for free water
at a Chipotle counter, and
[speech bubble] Can my son
please use y’all’s restroom?
it is so hot. it is so hot out there.
And all we do is walk.
All we do is [retcon]
[in a previous issue . . .]
My Granny graduated from a segregated
high school then cabbage-patched
till her bonnet was loose, sanging
O.V. Wright’s “Let’s Straighten it Out”
at her class reunion afterparty.
[Note to editorial:
Fuck you for giving her a brain tumor
that paralyzed her on Memorial Weekend]
[Steve, redo the colors:
Granny should be closer to Gladys Knight’s
voice chasing lonely boys around
Savannah, Georgia’s train tracks]
As Granny dies, Mama and i
visit her hospice bed and watch
aunties read advice columns and
Facebook updates to her letter-less body.
[Note that the family still pays her cancer bill.]
[Note that the family still believes i will
make it big with my career. Escape.]
[gutter space]
i should’ve been humble
American beginnings
prowling our apartment complex
with my ToyBiz Hulk Hands
chin-checking the bullies who
made fun of me for having a ponytail
that matched my mother’s. This origin
could’ve been a dream. i used to read
Scholastic magazines and pray
for a wood burning craft kit
to tattoo treasure maps onto
our front door that was
stapled with eviction notices.
[i should’ve made more of myself]
As i played Transformers in a savanna,
or watched the bootleg Princess and the
Frog DVD my auntie burned us inside
the living room, teachers and cousins
told Mama i would be the next Barack
Obama due to my color due to my
articulation [speech bubbles] Even with
his corny haircut, Miss Parker. Even with his
high-water Walmart blue jeans, Miss Parker.
Even with his babygirl face and family history
of diabetes, Miss Parker, your boy will be the
next Black face to spit alabaster atop Somalia
and command us through fire drills and bomb
threats. He will charm and wile our people
toward hope like a superhero a
magic negro superhero and he’ll save
you. Yes you, Mama Parker. He’ll
save your Black ass from the gutter.
[thought bubble] How many times will Peter wish himself a superhero
inside a hospital? Can he put down his [coloring book] [Gameboy] [comic]
[portable DVD player] [science homework] [application] [iPhone] next poem
and actually look into her [sick] eyes when she needs him—actually try
saving someone other than himself.
Tiger smokes his sixteenth cigarette, tells me
he hopes Mama hands down the family tobacco farm
to Little Sis. He gets so passionate on half-thoughts.
I tell him he’s lucky his family owns property,
but we stopped listening to each other hours ago
suppressed in the cradle of a twisted tonearm.
Ash wyverns within the melody between us. On
and on, a faulty speaker mumbles, on and on.
Tiger loves this record player. His pops left
it. The machine hums with a false chord, a blunt need
-le. Crackle, sizzle, pause. A guitar’s sharp in
-hale. Lauryn Hill is crying. Crack, sizzle, pause.
All the women made into coal for James Brown
to feel like a man, and Tiger still needs to ask
if I think his sneaky link loves him back. I say
Would it matter? I’ve learned I’m jealous of Tiger.
When White men are lonely, we name it an epidemic.
For everyone else, we set it to a metronome.
This leads to an argument, which leads to more
noise. 2Pac says we took our mothers for granted.
Luther Ingram leans into a wrong love. Crackle, sizzle,
Later, I’ll apologize and ask if Tiger likes the records
I brought. Yeah, he’ll say. I didn’t really grow up
with Black music.
Martheaus Perkins is a first-generation college graduate and the son of a single Black mother. He is the author of The Grace of Black Mothers (Trio House Press). He lives and teaches in Fairfax, Virginia. His name is a collection of each woman who helped raise him: “Mar-” was his grandmother, “-Thea-” is his mother’s name, and “-us-” represents his two aunties who created the name.
These color lithographs are to be found in Victoria Regia, or, The Great Water Lily of America: With a Brief Account of its Discovery and Introduction into Cultivation (1854), a work by amateur botanist John Fisk Allen which documents his attempts to propagate the Amazon’s Victoria regia (now called Victoria amazonica) in the more northerly climes of his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. See more at https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/william-sharp-s-chromolithographs-of-the-great-water-lily-1854/
