Night Women
Woman 25 years old.
Son, who is slipping into bed. Look from young to mature. Poor, one room house, use fabric to split into two spaces, two mats, two worlds.
Ghost father, her husband. An old lover who disappeared with the night shadows a long time ago.
Long blood red scarf. Woman used to tempt her suitors. Firefly found son not woman. Mosquitoes as kiss a woman with wide open flesh wounds.
No talking love. He did not need to know, love is one of those lessons that you grow to learn, the way one learns that one shoe is made to fit a certain foot, lest it cause discomfort.
Two kinds of women: day women and night women. She is stuck between the day and night in a golden amber bronze. Eyes are dirt. Copper. Standing in the sun. Night time worker.
Star. Ghost women. Son is like a butterfly fluttering on a rock that stands out naked in the middle of a stream. Like faraway lovers, lying to one another, under different moons. Tested he;s in sleeping by caressing his nose and jblowing his long eyelashes to see he is truly asleep. Living in a place where nothing lasts. Mom judges one people by the whiteness of the teeth.
In order to help him sink deeper into sleep, she applied another alyer of Egyptian rouge to her cheeks. Sparks in powder, easier for visitors to find her in the dark.
Emmanuel come, a doctor who likes big buttocks on women， women has small one. Come on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Bearing flowers. Bougainvillea. Surpise. Marriaged.
On Mondays and Thursdays, an accordion player name Alexandre. Likes to make the sound of the accordion with his mouth in her ear.
If son discovered the things, woman will tell him that the naked man is his father, angel brought him back.
Man left, called her avalanche and a waterfall. Smoke tobacco leaf. Thank the star that at least she had the days to herself. Angles have themselves a lifetime to come to us.
New York Day Women
Seeing mom on the street, strolling with a happy gait, her body thrust toward the don’t walk sign and yellow taxicabs . Madison and Fifty seventh Street. Mom never shops outside of Brooklyn, never seen advertising office where I work. Mom is afriad to take the subway, curse.
Mom: dont give your seat to a pregnant lady.
Mom is often right about that, the situation always depends on how pregnant the woman is, is or not with her boyfriend or husband. Mom showed patience.
Mom: In Haiti when you get hit by a car, own will kicks you for getting blood on his bumper.
Mom is at 59, say dentures are ok.
Followed mom, mesmerized by the possibilities of her journey. Mom saw many pinstripes, gray suits, high heels and elegant short skirts, reebok sneakers, dashing from building to building.
Mom: If they want to eat with me, let them come to my house, even if I boil water and give it to them.
Mom: Fat and cholesterol killed aunt Hermine.
She stopped against a wall to rest, mom keep on walking as though she owns the sidewalks under he feet. Plaza Hotel, messenger swings so close, stand, let him ride around and goes on.
Hot dog stand, ask, soda in bag. And anotehr vendor selling sundress for author, no, just another thing I would bury in the garage or give to goodwill.
Mom: No goodwill, so many people back home to need clothers. We save our clothers for the relatives in Haiti.
Stopped another hot dog vendor and buy frank further, eats in street. She should not eat anything with sodium.
Mom: No salt, salt is heavier than a hundred bags of shame.
Slowing pace, too close. To park, there’s a woman waiting her with child. Woman wearing a leotard with biker’s shorts and has samll weights in hands. Give child to mom. Running. Child, frizzy blond hair. Mom gives child the soda, both of them sit and watch the other children play in the sand box, child pulls a comic book. Mom read as a little girl. Mom now lose six of her seven sisters in Ville Rose and has never had the strength to return for funerals.
Mom: Many graves to kiss.
An hour late, woman back, mom gives back the children and continue walking. Author needs to go back to work, mom is standing in a circle, chatting with a group of women who are taking other people children on an afternoon outing. Third World Parent Teacher Association meeting.
Mom: Day women come out when nobody expects them.
On subway, stand up. Author called Suzette. Dolls.
Mom: I will have all these little Suzettes in case you never have any babies, which looks more and more like it is going to happen.
Mom pregnants at 39, Christ died on the cross.
Mom: You are so good anyway, what are they going to tell me, I do not want to make you ashamed of this day woman. Shame is heavier than a hundreds bags of salt.
Between the Pool and the Gardenials.
Pretty, bright shiny hair and dark brown skin. Lips were wide and purple. Gift from heaven. Like baby moses in the Bible stories. Or baby Jesus, who was born in a barn and died on a cross, with no body’s lps to kiss before he went. Round face. Eyes closed as though she was dreaming of a far other place. Hands were bony, veins to the surface.
Probably belonged to someone, but street had no one in it. Did not want to disturb, but wanga, a charm sent to trap me. The girls who slept with my husband. This loveliness to blind me so never find her way back to the place that I yanked out my head when she got on that broken down.
Children wearing an embroidered little blue dress with the letters ROSE, little girl, her body could never hold. Killing on purpose. Give all the clothes that she had sewn for them. All these went unused.
Madame television poor city women throw out babies because they can not afford to feed them. Ville Rose you can not throw out the bloody clumps that shoot out of your body after your child is born. Crime. Doorsteps, garbage cans, gas pumps, sidewalk. Port-au-Prince. Not seens a child until now. Rose, clean and warm. Tiny angel. Little cherub, sleeping after the wind had blown a lulaby into her ears. Picked up.
Rose did not stir or cry, she was like something that was thrown aside after she became useless to someone cruel. Mother’s prayer. There were many nights when I saw some old women leaning over my bed. Marie, she is now the last one of us left.
Grandmother Eveline who was killed by Dominican soldiers at the Massacre River. My grandmother Defile died with a bald head in a prison., because god had given her wings. My godmother Lili who killed herself in old age because her husband had jumped out of a flying ballon and her grown son left her to go to Miami.
Carried Rose to the outdoor market in Croix Bossale. Swayed her in arms, mine. People did not care.
In maid’s room, Petion Ville. Laid Rose on mat and rushed to prepare lunch. Monsieru and Madame sat on terrace and welcomed the coming afternoon by sipping the sweet out of you sour sop juice.
Manbos. Stupid people they have a spell to make themselves invisible and hut other people. Why not rich. Lay Rose down on the kitchen table as dried dishes. Sudden desire to explain to her my life. Loved Main, nice to her. Made her feel proper. Ten years with him. Dirty paper.
The Dominican and I made love on the grass once, but he never spoke to me again. Rose listened with closed eyes. Use apron to hide and eat plantains. No cry. Put back to room. Then to pool. Erzulie. Felt asleep rocking. Woke up next day she was still in arms. Looked the same.
Bathed baby more and more often, three or four times a day in pool. Perfume, not helping. Wanted to take her back to street where she had found her. But already disturbed her rest and had taken on her soul as her own personal responsibility.
She was left in a shack, Dominican kept his tools. Three times a day. Baby skin grow moist, cracked and sunken in some places, then ashy and dry in others. Attracking flies and keeping her spirit from moving on. Last bath and slipped on a little yellow dress that she had sewn while praying that one of her little girls would come along further than three months.
Took Rose down to a spot in the sun behind the big house. Dug a hold and wrapped her in the little pink blanket. Covering everything but her face. Smell so back.
A grip, not Monsieur or Madame. It was the Dominican. Deep Indian brown, but hands were bleached and wrinkled. Baby was sprinkled. No explanation. No time to answer.
Gendarmes, smell rotten flesh. She killed the child and keep it with you for evil. You eat a little children who havenot even had time to earn their souls. Kept hands on me in order to prevent escaping. We made a pretty picture standing there, Rose, me, and him. Between the pool and gardenias, waiting for the law.
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