The woman who kept us
The woman who
administered my weekly progesterone shots was Angel. Big. Black. Angel of gravity.
She rubbed lidocaine cream on my deep brown arm and told me of her 16 year old daughter
who wanted to be a model.
She braced me for the pain and told me stories of her people. She let these pretty black people spring forward from her teeth. She let her people dangle from every well-oiled two strand twist. She gave me her life in stories as she
kept us growing.
Her mother died and she did not tell me herself. Angel was gone and then returned.
She just
rubbed lidocaine on my thickening arm and told me her broad brown life. I gave her my condolences as I held my belly tenderly.
Our spirits sighing silently, “the things we have to go through.”
Salisa L. Grant
is a mother, wife, poet, educator, and scholar living in the Washington DC area. She has a BA from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, an MA from Howard University in Washington DC, and is currently pursuing her PhD from Howard University. Salisa uses poetry to make sense of and process the world around her. She also uses it to heal, to communicate, and to educate. Her debut poetry collection In these Black Hands (2019) is currently available on Amazon.
Instagram: brownasiwannabe