Ladders
Filene’s department store
near nineteen-fifty-three:
An Aunt Jemima floor
Display. Red bandanna,
apron holding white rolls
of black fat fast against
the bubbling pancakes, bowls
and bowls of pale batter.
This is what Donna sees
across the “Cookwares” floor,
and hears “Donessa?” Please,
this can not be my aunt.
Father’s long-gone sister,
nineteen-fifty-three. “Girl?”
Had they lost her, missed her?
This is not the question.
This must not be my aunt .
Jemima? Pays the rent.
Family mirrors haunt
their own reflections.
Ladders. Sisters. Nieces.
As soon a live Jemima
as a buck-eyed rhesus
monkey. Girl? Answer me.
Copyright Credit: Elizabeth Alexander, "Ladders" from The Venus Hottentot. Copyright © 2004 by Elizabeth Alexander. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.
Source: The Venus Hottentot (Graywolf Press, 2004)