Poem by Jawanza Dumisani

Smoke Signals


     Mother's eyes hold a century of secrets
     simmering in the baked sienna of her smile


     Her great-great grandmother catches carp
     and bluegill along the mouth of the Yazoo, calamity 


     suspended on a lush Mississippi plain, by a fire
     in a Choctaw tent. Gramps dozes near a radiator 


     hissing in the den. Relaxing in his rocker, he blows smoke rings
     from a Lucky Strike. Pauses___spits teeth


     into a wooden bowl on the table. Each pack is numbered
     Given two bits and the same wrinkled note, my eldest Al


     runs like a deer, fetching death from the corner 
     twenty sticks a time. We puff our way toward manhood


     One shade north of shame,
     I wear the grooves thin from Say It Loud


     Unbridled by a masked man on a white horse
     Gramps reveals a red streak when Tonto fills the screen


     My youngest brother Eugene craves a white hat
     and six-shooter, Gramps conjures the unforgettable,


     mumbles in his sleep or springs up like a runaway
     on a forked road peppered with shadowy horses searing crosses,


     sockets glazed over as if poisoned
     by all the hung bodies of a hundred years


     Southern green with high-yellow pride, he sits at the front of a bus
     as if saved means knowing who violated his mother


     A dark woman blends into a tribe of warriors,
     worn feet dance wind songs against whips robbed of their sting


     First people of Chickasaw sit warlike counting arrows,
     joined by Koroa's cruel treachery. Bison graze nearby.


     Reaching out, I shake the hand of Chief White Eagle
     a tomahawk nestled in his palm.

Jawanza Dumisani is the author of Black Raising Cane Over Red on Glover Lane Press & his most recent manuscript The Language Of Dying is due Spring 2017. He is a 2006 PEN Fellow and facilitates workshops for Beyond Baroque in Venice CA and The World Stage Art & Performance Gallery in Los Angeles CA.  Jawanza is also the recipient of a World Stage Art & Performance Gallery scholarship where he studied with Suzanne Lummis.

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