May I Ask

May I ask you who

your grandmother died

Her blackness

you pretended we’d assume

a servant’s      in the photograph

May I ask

did she die herself?

I know you all light

under an umbrella     don’t tan

and she could be seen

as she had been made too

dark for what the son do.

I saw her years ago after she died

And again today in the market

I asked her     I had to

know if she was who I knew    ...    

“Only two things you really has to —

tha’s to stay black and die.”

Black, yes, but if black leads some to pretend

that you have died

except you’re black and alive

who are you?

She is as hundreds of years old as

the stories of the lies

of grandmothers in the cellar    ...    

May I ask who

your grandmother      died if she died

herself?