Responding to an object from the museum collection, I created writings based on the Vernacular Photo Series, a box of intimate polaroids collected by Peter J. Cohen from various flea markets across the country. While thinking about these polaroids, Isabel Wilkerson’s research on the Great Migration in The Warmth of Other Suns, and Jesmyn Ward’s imagery in Sing, Unburied, Sing, contributed much context to the project as well as to my personal experiences moving from Houston to Providence.
Uniform spandex binds my hips
like a tight curtain sash,
wind looking much freer than how it usually look
cold and naked in the daylight
As always
ms. keith follows in her same tradition,
grabbing cheeks and
gibbering like some baby
From where i sit i can see ma’s judging eye
tearing me down from her choir pew,
says that last service mrs.lou caught me
flirtin my eyes with some boy
After revival
i head to the reception table,
tempting that german chocolate cake
against ma’s custard white dress
Out of the corner
of coolness
petals lay open faced, juiced
starches flowing
baked on the pavement
loose like tethered skin
Snipping snapping
adhesive footprints
violet smudges, dehydrated
and faint of pulp
in a quiet space of headache
baby buds peel
crawling sticky
vanilla
like sweat
Sundried tomato,
bitter back tongue sweet
I get a twisty head, a frying stomach
sultry eyed and scared
walk far away and pretending not to walk back
clutching those tired frustrated pockets
furthest from them black boys,
them ghetto black boys,
they beautiful black boys,
they carrying on like flies do,
everywhere on each other but neva touching
crisp ice chilling up the noon
eyes pierced frigid,
suffocating me and my white tee
home from where those black boys be
we lay our tenderized heads stacked in the freezer
searching for whatever treats left over from last service
in the dead of midday heat
we hear not one cicada kiss
our pavement sizzles and
speaking to us from the pane
a tub of dish armor
suds up to our arms, and
wets our bellies
heads dizzy of pine and bleach
tall day flattens at evening
radio voices play behind cleaning
repetitive games of sticker boy
with loud screams of laughter
mommas permission
we run as fast as we can
before she changes her mind
gums flapping flour dust into creme sky
we took those stolen traditions back
wore those tragic colors
and distinguished our own
guardian of our crest
sworn duty to protect and shine
through musk and tears
under the painful beat of the sun
mind working like a machine
inhale, exhale. one step, holt, and pivot.
white and crimson
bathed in our intensity
oral traditions
inaction
bodies speaking in unison
teaching offspring
through the honor and respect
we expose to each other
it works like muscle memory
what oral history
can do to nervous system
adjusting to a world
north and south
shocks
the same bodily trauma
travels
borders
and generations
and that hatred
that is pre-colonial
still stings
skin still punctured, peeling
gentle with my skin
tender with your hugging
in step you flow
back and forth
breathing warmly behind my ear
i always hear that start to your grin
the parting to your lips
i am always concerned
always with my guard up
cautioning whatever is left open for judgement
i shake from being this open
this abandoned
i chill
you welcome me in
fluorescent against white walls, kanekalon braids, single file practicing hand games, protected by wired fence
warm lint
hot
gravel crush
in grown antlers,
threatened by tweed,
and bush,
like the angry larva,
growling in my tummy
butterflies hatch, murmuring hymns
Shuriya Davis was the 2018 Andrew W. Mellon Summer Intern in School and Teacher Programs. They are a 2018 graduate of RISD’s Painting program.