The Language of Joy

Black woman joy is like this:

Mama said one day long before I was born

she was walking down the street,

foxes around her neck, their little heads

smiling up at her and out at the world

and she was wearing this suit she had saved up

a month’s paycheck for after it called to her so seductively

from the window of this boutique. And that suit

was wearing her, keeping all its promises

in all the right places. Indigo. Matching gloves.

Suede shoes dippity-do-dahed in blue.

With tassels! Honey gold. And, Lord, a hat

with plume de peacock, a conductor’s baton that bounced

to hip rhythm. She looked so fine she thought

Louis Armstrong might pop up out of those movies

she saw as a child, wipe his forehead and sing

ba da be bop oh do de doe de doe doe.

And he did. Mama did not sing but she was skiddly-doing that day,

and the foxes grinned, and she grinned

and she was the star of her own Hollywood musical

here with Satchmo who had called Ella over and now they were all

singing and dancing like a free people up Dexter Avenue,

and don’t think they didn’t know they were walking in the footsteps

of slaves and over auction sites and past where old Wallace

had held onto segregation like a life raft, but this

was not that day. This day was for foxes and hip rhythm

and musical perfection and folks on the street joining in the celebration

of breath and holiness. And they did too. In color-coordinated ensembles,

they kicked and turned and grinned and shouted like church

or football game, whatever their religious preference. The air

vibrated with music, arms, legs, and years of unrequited

sunshine. Somebody did a flip up Dexter Avenue.

It must have been a Nicholas Brother in a featured performance,

and Mama was Miss-Lena-Horne-Dorothy-Dandridge

high-stepping up the real estate, ready for her close-up.

That’s when Mama felt this little tickle. She thought

it might be pent-up joy, until a mouse squirmed out

from underneath that fine collar, over that fabulous fur,

jumped off her shoulder and ran down the street.

Left my mama standing there on Dexter Avenue in her blue

suit and dead foxes. And what did Mama do?

Everybody looking at her, robbed by embarrassment?

She said, “It be like that sometimes,” then she and Satchmo,

Ella, and the whole crew jammed their way home.