by AVA TIYE KINSEY
(After looking through old pictures and asking questions that never seemed to get answered about Big-Big Mama)
Pale and wrinkled from lye soap-ridden water, these hands held pinched nerves in back, held up husband who the world would batter and belittle. These hands fought off Mr. Tribble for as long as they could until his morbid lust made Aunt Lillie, not quite brown, pale as the lye. These hands birthed sisters who became aunts, cousins who became confidants, uncles who became haints, devilish sons who became saints, and daughters who became… her…
These hands held time. Each wrinkle having its own song, which she’d hum or moan. These hands held dreams and reality. Big-Big Mama would say, “Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up fastest.” And because it was more tangible, she learned to accept shit all the while abhorring its brownness, its funk. From then on, she taught herself how to swallow it whole and never smell of it.
This is how you turn innards into delicacy and make heaven in hell. Her molecular memory of home, the place we all dwelt before, allowed us to survive the rat bites and the roaches, the hot comb streaks on foreheads and the chemical burns from the straightening formula.
But who will snatch her, our Mama, our matriarch, from the annals of history? Who will find the key to her hum and make her moans a libretto? A testimony to the triumphant silence of survival? Who?
(Looking at a picture of a smileless Big-Big Mama in her youth)
You.
(GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER takes the photo of Big-Big Mama and closes her eyes and says a prayer. She opens her eyes and is something, someone more than she was before)