The Talk
BY F. DOUGLAS BROWN
Mother Says:we didn’t know birth control
just the sex got it from my grandma ten or twelve of her children parading on the carpet’s 1930s weave she could bear down pain her way through a bolder weight between her legs her last was born under a tree leaves lumped like soft loaves of wheat bread an egyptian cushion we were told how wide she opened the wind inside her pushing the tree reaching down pulling him out we never questioned the facts we just wanted a lil something-something everywhere on the beach behind the zoo my first time was in a stalled car rain and a boy’s fingers bucketing down, tapping on my back and breasts that night, i did not have my grandma’s strength but i too, opened up |
Father Told Me:back then, the body did not have
just the hunger grandmother’s morals caught us vinegar or golden seal or buttermilk curdling sweetness hidden under choir robes her heavy-handed lessons on sex stained me guilty in pomegranate in blood orange in bible ink brightness to remind my fingers not to touch my hands anxiety cramped afraid to grasp or grope grandmother’s alluded anger the fear of being brought before her my palms inability to catch to shuck off any tears my eyes checkered innocent for years until your mother tinged my vision she filled my tongue made it swollen until a gush pomegranate, blood orange no shame in kissing your future i was trapped in her, drunk in the wine cooler white of her white a fruit worth breaking grandmother’s god and her gaze poised and precise |
my legs, bridge wide
my skin, back seat tough and leathery
my body, rain drenched on the inside
and you arriving faster
than the next song
my skin, back seat tough and leathery
my body, rain drenched on the inside
and you arriving faster
than the next song
F. Douglas Brown is an educator currently teaching English at Loyola High School of Los Angeles, an all boys Jesuit school. He has an MA in Literature and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and is currently in the MFA program at Antioch University of Los Angeles. He is both a Cave Canem and Kundiman fellow, two writing organizations that celebrate and cultivate African American and Asian American poets, respectively. Mr. Brown has two beautiful children, Isaiah and Olivia. When he is not teaching or writing or being a daddy, F. Douglas Brown spends his time DJing around the greater Los Angeles area.
