We'Re Just Brown

Grandma’s brown knuckles crinkled As she gently peeled the heirloom Potatoes, discarding the brown- Skinned strips into the garbage Bin. She was at home here, alive And aloud, tastes and scents mingling In the air like wispy fairies in Neverland, mingling With the mauve, sun-kissed raisins lying crinkled On slices of butter-brown toast. She is alive Here, sheltered by the pots and pans, heirlooms from her mother Wilma, who once was the garbage Lady, the help, for a white family uptown. Wilma's brown Skin was the softest variety of brown, Likened to silky mocha-hued beads mingling With glints of the golden hour. Garbage, However, was her epithet. She was crinkled Black plastic to that white family. Her heirloom was the oppressive garrote of Jimmy Crow — alive And well in the hearts of many, still alive Today in the gashes and slashes brown Men, women, and children still absorb, heirlooms from a past infected with rankling vehemence mingling With entitled gall. Wilma's old hands were dry-crinkled, Just like her daughter, who now throws the skin in the garbage, Who marched hard to not be viewed as garbage, Who plans to keep Wilma’s soulful memory alive, Who cooks until her freckle-speckled hands are crinkled, Who is loud and proud to be her shade of brown, Who gets straight to business and foregoes the mingling, Who works so her progeny can be have the proudest heirloom: Pride. Pride in those gently-knotted heirloom locks, pride in the skin that was once garbage, Pride, pride, pride. Her ever-beating heart mingles With the cosmos — she is a celestial being, alive In the splendor of black joy. She also likes her toast brown And her sun-kissed raisins ever-so-crinkled. And while her heirloom knuckles stay tightly crinkled, Her heart will mingle with stars and keep the love alive, Because she — we — will never be garbage again. We’re just brown.