I am trying to carve out a world where people are not the sum total of their disaster

By Remica Bingham-Risher
But for the grace of God
one might begin and
this must be the life of a woman.
 
I will barely touch the surface
of all it took to keep them here.
 
They taught us to nod to others in the street,
to holler love, to knead eggs and butter and flour
into yeast rolls larger than fists, to coax and heed the land.
 
Looking at us, every god
must be astonished and envious—
 
what could leave us finished?
Grandmother's grandmother,
enslaved by someone's daughter,
 
enslaved and someone's daughter, held
her mother out to us with eager, capable hands.
 
What couldn't she grow, what couldn't she stand?
And the man beside her, kissing her neck at night
before being thrown into war in the nation and abroad,
 
barreled back to her, her creases, her starch
and hand-me-down pots, her thick hair and threadbare dresses,
 
loved every falling-apart piece of her
down to the rocked-over heels on her shoes.
Every lie told says there was no love
 
between them but everywhere
I turned, here it was:
 
slow drags, belly laughs;
few reckon with their joy.
Most will make happiness a footnote
 
along with evenings on the porch,
hitting the number straight or box,
 
motherwit, innerlight.
O glory and genius
of unfathomable invention:
 
to raise overfull children
with a guiding soft hand.
 
Strange how everything can become
a symbol—a cushaw gourd,
songs sung to trees, hair luster, dreams—
 
any charm one carries can be
a hopeful, treasured thing.
 
They helped us find bottles
with corners of homespun shine
and place our lips above the hollow
 
until they sang. They were not angels,
they were not myth. They saved
 
pennies and baby hair and wedding rings,
grew big as a pianobox, broke through fever.
Their suffering wasn't everything.

Copyright Credit: Remica Bingham Risher, "I am trying to carve out a world where people are not the sum total of their disaster" from Room Swept Home. Copyright © 2024 by Remica Bingham Risher.  Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Source: Room Swept Home (Wesleyan University Press, 2024)