i peruse paint samples to learn what shade names you. a blend of calumet cream1 and ivory2 and at
your cheek blush rose, but i didn’t need a color chart for that. at six months, you have lost the
shimmer that teens buy cheap or steal in their first transgressions, but for a time, there it was, free,
this fleeting mica fleck, as if you were still dipped in celestial, all known and unknown elements you
rode to my pulsing womb. all these months, i watched the star dust fade, the cosmic hold loosening
to terra firma. and now, you are dressed in a soft blue onesie with little ears. what animal does
capitalism say that you are? your little one is safe and warm and held and ours, it seems to say. stupid
symbols, charts, and systems. stupid the act of reaching for a fixation. in my womb, i felt a girl and
then at 10 weeks when your sex organs formed, a boy. now sometimes i forget the sex i bore and use
pronouns that are mine for you. shake loose of it all. i never asked you to tell me your name; you
told me at your being start. all i know is that i bore you. nursed you as i was able. only you can name
you. i know nothing else.
1 1976 Cadillac Seville Paint Codes
2 from Ingrid Sundberg’s Color Thesaurus
Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Puerto Rican, and from Philadelphia. She is a member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Macondo, AfroSurreal Writers Workshop, and Círculo de Poetas and Writers. She is the author of Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra: dis(locate), and two chapbooks, profeta withour refuge and most recently Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review.
Latest posts by Raina J. León (see all)
- beyond hardware - April 4, 2022
