Breath Better Spent by DaMaris Hill

Author:DaMaris Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635576627
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

NEVER GROW OLD: PART TWO

(for Dr. Kim Richards, UBWSLI NoLa2014)

You are old as you will ever be,

galloping in a dance studio with an ancient girl,

ancient as redwoods and limber as Bermuda

grass. This ancient girl has shimmy style that

makes cathedrals wish for bones. Her mind

holds more mysteries than Mardi Gras. Lips

loose with comedies and confessions. She paints

them sequin, iridescent, and pearl. New Orleans

is our Auntie NoLa. Your silver-haired sister knows

NoLa’s name in African and First Nations tongues.

She keeps sacred wisdom stored in her teeth.

You are a shrub, your hair is juba blanketing

your nostrils. The ancient girl can taste your lust

for cornrows in the rain. She knows the salt and

sweat at your neck is a rusting halo. She is the one

who showed you how to fling laughter from your

wrists. She transforms plastic forks into afro-pick

technologies, forms crop circles in your hair. She

begins with three parts:

create

learn

laugh

one is to create

one is to learn

one is to laugh—at will

a girl should create

a girl should learn

a girl should laugh as a healing practice

you girl-create.

you girl-learn, learn the name of every star. they are ancestors.

you girl-laugh, laugh even in the face of danger.

no one can

harm you without your permission

create you, girl

learn you, girl, learn all the words your mind and

mouth can carry and command them. your tongue is a

weapon. your throat—a cannon.

laugh you, girl. laughter in the face of more

powerful others is your superpower.

You are a girl. You own the power to create a world and peace

and love. Your love is the rock candy of joy crystalizing in your

blood, frosting in your breath.

You, girl, should learn all your life, beyond your

schooling, over the rainbow, further than the universe

nested between your thighs, on the other side of old and

even until the inner darkness of your navel is no longer

a secret cell. Take the time to learn even as your skin

flakes. She is shifting scales out of my cornrows.

You are listening and laughing because you are

young and nobody’s fool. Too little in too many

ways to know Aunt NoLa’s sacred name, or the

ways she formed herself from the river and the sea.

You think it has something to do with spit, because

your ancient sister licks her fingers and smooths

your crown. Then you spill out into the light.

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