"Words for a Dying Uncle," A Poetry Post

You were the first of us to believe
that a ghetto girl could be a princess.

It was unusual for a
black boy born on
Prince Street to keep
so clean; and,

it was laughable to others that a
man would choose
cosmetics and catering over
sports and womanizing
in the 60s.

These are the behaviors that
separated you from your peers;
and,
these were the avenues to your
pursuit of beauty.

Don't think I can overlook the
regalization of black faces during a
time of racial degradation sir.

To some,
you were the equivalent of a
gay man playing
dollhouse with
living black barbies, but
to others!

To others you were a
window into ballrooms and
parties and flash photography.

You put the black girl on one of
few pedestals available to her by
moisturizing her wooly hair and
puckering her thick, smart mouth into
something fashionable.

The gowns and the food and the music,
the gowns and the food and music
transformed unwed mothers and
corner-store-runners and
babysitters into
more than duck and cover or
under-the-cover girls.

Catwalks inspired field women to
cocoa butter up their
mahogany brown legs and
wear the slit on the
thick black woman's thigh.

Family recipes made
silent women talk.

"Mmm," they would say.
"What did you put in this and
how can I be this
magnificent?"

Little yard weddings became
soirees fit for queens and kings,
ornamented with chafing dishes full of
delicacies black families had
never seen.

And the bride,
"My GOD!" they would say.
"Who mounted her
coils like that?"

"Hmm," some quiet colored girl would say.

"That little black man in the back
cooking up that food
did that. You must know him?!"

Now that you're dying,
nobody's saying anything.

Perhaps they are afraid to see you
outside of the designer suits they were
so enchanted with,
the remarkable shades that
nobody else was wearing.

Maybe they can't imagine you
laying here like you are,
not saying anything,
not being the life of the party,
not dillydallying around the girls' hair.

It is HARD FOR THEM TO SEE
the primary judge of their food's value
unable to eat at all.

But I see you
just the way you were the
first time you put this
pretty girl's great big hips into a
dress...

A pretty girl that
hadn't yet digested the
concept of maintenance.

You are the same,
just unable to provide for yourself
the glamour you created
for others.

Let me then provide you with the reasonable foods,
the appropriate wardrobe.

I will dress you again in your best suit.

I will spray on the eau de toilette.

After you have gone on,
I will continue to bring into our blackness
the beauty that you lived to reveal.

I will remember to live out the
onlookers' standard reply to
EVERYTHING related to you.

"My God," they will say.
"How did she do that?"

And someone will say,
"That's Harry's niece,
one of Nussie's girls come home
from the city.
You must know her?!"

-T. D. James-Moss