After the Apocalypse

Abstract

Ama Codjoe | 137 1. After the apocalypse, I yearned to be reckless. To smash a glass brought first to my lips. To privilege lust over tomorrow. To walk naked down the middle of a two-­ lane road. But, too late, without my bidding, life cracked open, rushed, openmouthed, like a panting dog whose name I did not call—my lips shut like a purse. The last man I kissed was different than the last man I fucked. We were so desperate then, the two of us, undone by longing, drawing night from the cracks inside us, drawing the night out, as long as we could, until dawn broke like a beat egg and our heartbeats quieted in private fatigue. I’d be lying if I said I don’t recall his name. The end of the world has ended, and desire is still all I crave. Oh, to be a stone, sexless and impenetrable. Over half of me is water, a river spilling into restless limbs, the rest of me is a scalding heat like the asphalt under my feet. 2. After the apocalypse, I mothered my mother, became grandmother to myself, distant and tender, temples turning gray. The whole world cascaded past my shoulders, like the hair self-­ hatred taught me to crave—though all my Barbie dolls were black. And the Cabbage Patch Kid my grandmother placed under the artificial Christmas tree, sprinkled with tinsel, in Memphis, Tennessee, the city where my mother waited for her first pair of glasses in the Colored Only waiting room. She said the world changed from black-­ and-­ white to Technicolor that day. My mother watches TV as I roll her hair. She sits poetry After the Apocalypse Ama Codjoe 138 | Ama Codjoe between my legs. I’ve never birthed a child. I have fondled the crown of a lover’s head, my thighs framing his dark brown eyes. I entered the world excised from my mother’s womb. Her scar is a mark the color of time. I am my mother’s weeping wound. On my last birthday, I cried into bathwater. I hid my tears from my mother because that’s what mothers do. 3. After the apocalypse, I had the urge to dance on the president’s grave. The dispossessed threw me a belated quinceañera. My godmother wore a necklace of the dictator’s teeth. She sliced an upside-­ down cake, licked her forefinger, and said, “You have mastered sadness, querida, may your rage be sticky and sweet.” My father offered his hand—this time I took it. We glided like ballroom dancers across the red dirt floor. He wore a grave expression. I embraced him tightly so as to cloak my face. Instead of a toast, he handed me a handkerchief, wet with tears. My father circled the guests silently, dabbing gently each of their cheeks. This too was a dance unfolding. I folded the handkerchief into a fist and raised my fist like a glass of champagne. The pain in my father’s eyes sparkled like the sequins on my tattered gown. If it hadn’t been so ugly it would’ve been beautiful. The party ended just as the world had: with the sound of rain beating against the earth and each of us on our hands and knees peering into pools of mud and thirst. 4. After the apocalypse, time turned like a mood ring. My mood changed like a thunderstruck sky. The sky changed like a breast, engorged, staining the front of a white silk blouse. I got laid off. I went thirteen days without wearing a bra. I changed my mind about the fiction of money. Money changed hands. I washed my hands religiously. Religion changed into sunlight— something allowed to touch my face. My face changed into my mother’s. No, into a mask of my mother’s face. Traces of heartache changed into a pain in my right hip. The stock market Ama Codjoe | 139 dipped. The S & P fell freely. I did not fall to my knees promising to change my life. The price of paper towels changed and the price of toilet paper and the price of white bread...