Bless my bad ideas and butt whippings
the black plastic combs passed out on Picture Day
Bless my taking the comb
and listening to the blonde-haired girl
promising, "I can make you purty"
Bless me for wanting to be purty
but obviously lost in the whitest of seas
floating on a kindergarten raft with no sign of help
via a mirror, or a black girlfriend
to keep me from going astray
Bless my Ramona the Pest ways
always getting it wrong
collar and ribbon upturned
always at the other end of mama's
"Dag nam your time, chile!"
Bless the five years that I had already spent on this earth
those years already filled with my schoolgirl's sense of shame
wearing Pig-Pen's dusty aura
like a shadow that I could not shake
Bless Mama's tug of war with each strand
Bless my tenderheadedness that matched my heart
Tender, nothing but tender
Too tender for my mama's heavy hands
that did not know their own strength
pulling each strand on my head through the hot comb
during this Saturday morning ritual
Bless her command
"Don't let nobody touch your hair!"
Bless my ears not hearing
Bless the brewing of sorrow and regret
that are already in my eyes
Bless the back of the camel broken by the straw
Bless my backside the day the pictures arrived home
when my mama saw my hair as what she called
"Something the cat drug in"
Bless my eyes and the load they were already carrying
Bless me, a high-strung girl
feeling like my family's punchline
When they saw my first school photo each laugh felt like a jolt
Bless how I learned to pocket the hurt in my heart
Bless this act of survival
Bless the small tines of the black comb, the teeth
the bite that every hand is not a helping one
Bless the little white girl that did not see my beauty
Bless me for not seeing my beauty
the years it took for me to unlearn self-loathing
and not one hair on my head that needed touching
Bless this little girl within me
to come back to this picture with a smile
seeing myself as cute and loveable
with sandalwood-smooth skin
and the deepest amber eyes scouring already like a poet
Bless my little girl-self waiting for my return
to make the connection between then and now
my hair now locked and woven
wrapping myself with both forgiveness and release