Memento
How thoughtlesslyI took it, this castiron Aunt Jemima
doll hauled from the trunkof my whitefriend’s car. Another
of T’s, her Jamaicanhusband’s, mementoshe collected
as a joke. Not unlikethose figurinesI recall a college friend once
exhibited, who’d boughtAunt Jemima spoons,shirts, piggy
banks, left his apartment strewnwith UncleRemus albums scavenged
from thrift shops: someterrible gaghe’d invite friends over
to witness: we’d sitand try not to look,or to look and laugh
with the sameirony he’d cultivated,though of course
it couldn’t be the same. Hewas Black and wewere not and didn’t
each of us still havesome cupboard stickywith the drippings from these
crystallized red caps, a boxof Uncle Ben’sgrowing rancid
in the pantry?My friend, I don’t think,enjoyed his figurines so much
as our discomfort, the facthe could see us for the first timesee the image the way he’d had to,
which is not the same as feelinghis own…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, September/October 2023