Brown Girl Dreaming Read Free

in this position,
    the front porch swing moving gently back and forth,
    the sun warm on our faces, the day only halfway over.
    I see your grands are back for the summer,
    Miss Bell says.
Getting big, too.
    It is Sunday afternoon.
    Out back, my grandfather pulls weeds from his garden,
    digs softly into the rich earth to add new melon seeds.
Wondering
    if this time, they’ll grow. All this he does from
    a small chair, a cane beside him.
    He moves as if underwater, coughs
    hard and long into a handkerchief, calls out for Hope
    when he needs the chair moved, sees me watching,
    and shakes his head.
I’m catching you worrying,
he says.
    Too young for that. So just cut it out now, you hear?
    His voice
    so strong and clear today, I can’t help smiling.
    Soon I’ll rise from the porch,
    change out of my Kingdom Hall clothes into
    a pair of shorts and a cotton blouse
    trade my patent-leather Mary Janes for bare feet
    and join my grandfather in the garden.
    What took you so long,
he’ll say.
I was about to turn
    this earth around without you.
    Soon, it’ll be near evening and Daddy and I
    will walk slow
    back into the house where I’ll pull the Epsom salt
    from the shelf
    fill the dishpan with warm water, massage
    his swelling hands.
    But for now, I sit listening to Nicholtown settle
    around me,
    pray that one day Roman will be well enough
    to know this moment.
    Pray that we will always have this—the front porch,
    my grandfather in the garden,
    a woman in a blue-checked sunbonnet
    moving through azaleas . . .
    Pretty children,
Miss Bell says.
    But God don’t make them no other kinda way.

home then home again
    Too fast, our summer in Greenville
    is ending.
    Already, the phone calls from my mother
    are filled with plans for coming home.
    We miss
    our little’s brother’s laughter, the way
    he runs to us at the end of the school day as if
    we’ve been gone forever. The way his small hands
    curl around ours when we watch TV. Holding
    tight through the scary parts, until we tell him
    Scooby-Doo will save the day,
    Bugs Bunny will get away,
    Underdog will arrive before the train hits
    Sweet Polly Purebred.
    We drag our feet below our swings,
    our arms wrapped lazily around the metal links
    no longer fascinated by the newness
    of the set, the way we climbed all over the slide,
    pumped our legs hard—toward heaven until
    the swing set shook with the weight of us lifting it
    from the ground.
    Next summer,
my grandfather said,
I’ll cement it down.
    But in the meantime
    you all swing low.
    Our suitcases sit at the foot of our bed, open
    slowly filling with freshly washed summer clothes,
    each blouse, each pair of shorts, each faded cotton dress
    holding a story that we’ll tell again and again
    all winter long.



family
    In the books, there’s always a happily ever after.
    The ugly duckling grows into a swan, Pinocchio
    becomes a boy.
    The witch gets chucked into the oven by Gretel,
    the Selfish Giant goes to heaven.
    Even Winnie the Pooh seems to always get his honey.
    Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother is freed
    from the belly of the wolf.
    When my sister reads to me, I wait for the moment
    when the story moves faster—toward the happy ending
    that I know is coming.
    On the bus home from Greenville, I wake to the almost
    happy ending, my mother standing at the station, Roman
    in his stroller, his smile bright, his arms reaching for us
    but we see the white hospital band like a bracelet
    on his wrist. Tomorrow he will return there.
    We are not all finally and safely
    home.

one place
    For a long time, our little brother
    goes back and forth to the hospital, his body
    weak from the lead, his brain
    not doing what a brain is supposed to do. We don’t
    understand why he’s so small, has tubes
    coming from his arms, sleeps and sleeps . . .
    when we visit him.
    But one day,
    he comes home. The holes in the wall
    are covered over and left
    unpainted, his bed pulled away from
temptation,
    nothing for him to peel away.
    He