Honey, MS 1938


I .

The After-Brother

Mama would not love me.

I reach back to the behind days, to the Before-Brother, who became outside of her body too still. That spanked bottom, way back in that before, the strikes made against skin unsparked, and screams from the Before-Brother funneled into the would-be mama's mouth—the only after to come from his birth.

The Before-Brother. Oh, she say he was so beautiful, so perfect in his whisper-thin wails, and nowadays mama can't stand to even hear my smallest whimpers.

She shouts, "Lord, your brother never asked for nothin! Never needed a thing!"


II.

The Before-Brother

Mama would not have loved me.

I stretch out to the forward days, to the After-Brother, who bloomed outside of her body squirming.

Those torn scream tones, I touch them, their tastes just the same as my own, had I let them out. No, I held mine on in, fed them to mama same as she had fed to me, cord to cord, and they just sort of spewed on out from her mouth.

She shouts, shouts at the After-Brother instead of at me, "Lord, take me back! Up out of this after! Take me back! Take me forward! Take me, now!"


III.

The Now-Brother

Mama would have loved you.

I stand still in the ahead days, where mama is better at mama'ing, to inherit the finest of her affections.

In the ahead days, where time ain't give her no choice but to wring out all of her wrongs. When the body is less become and more abide, and gets to be quiet, to sit still with all of its done-dids.

Mama reaches back to the After-Brother, stretches out to the Before-Brother, pulls in the Now-Brother, swaddles us all three. She sings— "Lord, look at my mighty-fine children. Mighty-fine! Yesuh, yesuh, all three mighty-fine! I thank Him, I thank ya, I thank Him!"


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