Claudette Colvin & I take the bus, and: Heaux Creed

Abstract

Claudette Colvin & I take the bus, and: Heaux Creed Honora Ankong Claudette Colvin & I take the bus What radicalized you? She asks & I look up from my worn-out copy of the bluest eye. It is early fall in Blacksburg & the marigolds are still in bloom. We speed past plantation rd. what didn't? even her stares know me I wanted to birth a revolution but they wouldn't let me. I was young too dark already pregnant with child. They said it wasn't a good look. I want to tell her everything—how I got off the waitlist my black blasphemy mouth calling to a god I wasn't even sure existed. I wanted to write poems & they offered money but when I grew mad with anger and poemed all my black rage they clapped & said but it sings so beautifully. At the next stop, she moves to sit even closer to me us colored folks were never allowed to try on the merchandise at the stores, mama would use a brown paper bag trace & cut out our foot outlines when it was time for new shoes. Too often I've been the only Black person in the room & too often I have felt invisible, I tell her. Like the day my white professor insisted to say nigger as we read Countee Cullen. I resisted but she insisted & the department did nothing. Harriet & Sojourner was in the bus with me that day we were learning bout them in school & my mind was filled with so many things black. They held me down, one on each side. I couldn't move, I wouldn't move. Pointing at my book us black girls only as ugly as the hate reflected on us. Staring out the bus at the sap-green trees zooming past us, I ask her how we escape this place. We don't run— we walk away with the daylight. [End Page 93] Heaux Creed In the name of my freest self—In the name of a slow whine at the club on a nigga I just met & have no intention of sexing.In the name of his liquored breath against my neckIn the name of it's packed & sweltering hot in here & I'm sweating out my edges & the next bitch that step on me gone catch these hands.In the name of 1 dollar fake-gold bamboo earrings from the beauty supplyIn the name of loose morals & my third tequila soda & I'm drunk & confessing my everlasting love to the gxrl I just met in the bathroom.In the name of ratchet intellectualism,In the name of Toni Morrison braless at a disco in '74 & some of my best poems were written on a napkin at the bar counter, something about the fellowship of being amongst kin.In the name of all that I consider to be gospel— [End Page 94] In the name of Khia's "Don't Trust No Niggaz," me & the homegxrls driving home after the party & it's bout 3:30am & we shouting out lyrics like spells:In the name of "everything is everything" & bag lady, you gone hurt yourselfIn the name of we got a lot to be mad about & didn't they tell you that I was savage? Giggling down the dorm hallway & fumbling the keys & everytime I get drunk I text an ex.In the name of my friend who grabs my phone before I get a chanceIn the name of the sankofa tattoo on her nape she looks me soft in the eyes & whispers, this time next year we'll be living so good, I swear & I dream—In the name of that one picture of Nina Simone & Miriam Makeba sharing a kiss & a cigIn the name of poem for a woman whose voice I like & homage to my hips & hull & hoodwitch, gumbo yaya & build yourself a boat, salt body shimmer & the black maria, magical negro & how to carry water.In the name of all that we name ourselves: hoe, hoochie, thot, trick, gawd. asé asé asé [End Page 95] Copyright © 2021 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents