lil miss jackson
i am not always small, somebody’s little sister, somebody’s baby girl born with pneumonia. i guess that makes me a miracle & on god’s green earth how can any miracle be small? we moved from harlem after mommy didn’t like the way the landlord was looking at my legs. i don’t know what mommy means by that. she looks at my legs every day & say how skinny they is, like chicken legs when they still alive & pecking ground for rocks or worms or whatever fills they tummy best. i never been to a farm only seen a chicken on black ’n white tv & picture books. most chicken i see come dead in plastic wrap down at the supermarket. mommy often cusses me for not having more meat on my bones like my sister. my sister is what mommy like to call healthy so healthy for halloween we dress her up as a fat boy, stuff her front with pillows to make her gut round enough to really pass. i’m a ghost—one giant white sheet pulled over my plaits down to the ankle right above my white sneaks. being small & all the sheet almost swallows me whole. sissy’s fat boy disguise is so good the neighbor boys stop us right in front of miss mable’s stoop. they circle around us like ants on a cheese cracker but sissy naturally don’t scare easy. i seen her beat up at least one of them boys the last time they tried to mess with her so i know sissy ain’t about to let them whup our butts & steal our trickortreats. the tallest most ashy one come forward, say sara that you? almost didn’t recognize you in that get-up. i always knowed you was some kinda bulldagger. guess today you tryin out your true form. sara say back, why you worried bout what i’m doin? wit them rusty knees. who you sposed to be—the tin man? tall & ashy ain’t like that remark one bit. his friends liked to keel over, laughing & whooping like it’s the best thing they heard since last wednesday. it look like she really hurt tall & ashy’s feelings & i ain’t think he had much in the way of feelings since his mama died last week on accident. he ain’t cry not once. she was giving birth to his sixth baby brother which meant another kid he was gonna have to look after while no one was gonna look after him. they daddy still around not like our daddy so they all will get to stay together for now but it look like tall & ashy gonna have to stock full time down at the woolworth. he gonna miss the 7th grade which seem like he’d be ok with since he never went to school all like that anyway. didn’t seem like nothing really hurt him until today when sara call him tin man & his eyes flash something ugly. sara went for them knees to cut him down right there but i remember the tin man ain’t got no heart & that’s what the elders been saying about tall & ashy, they been asking about his heart. shoot, even his daddy cried a bit while they took the mama’s body out the house. i try tugging at the rope pretending to be a belt at sara’s waist, hoping she get the hint it’s time to go. i says to sara, my feet hurt & i’m scared for you. sara turns to me quick, well go on in the house then. i ain’t got no problem beatin all they narrow behinds. boys don’t scare me none. tall & ashy sees that as a greenlight to haul off & punch sara square in the chest. me, sara & the other boys ain’t see none of it coming but when sara goes down on the concrete she take tall & ashy with her. i can’t stand here & watch so i run. i run past the pink house with no shutters & the brown house missing steps. i run pass ms. patty in her housecoat call herself raking the leaves meanwhile she busy being nosy, on her way inside to tell somebody’s mama what was what. the ghost sheet trips me up so i wrap it in a wad & carry it like a baby in my arms. i leap over the old tire that never found its way off the middle of the sidewalk. my heart racing but my mind clear: a bat. get that bat. i run home to get the biggest bat i can find & come back swinging.
Nefertiti Asanti (@electricfl0wer) is a poet and cultural worker from the Bronx. Nefertiti is a recipient of fellowships and residencies from The Watering Hole, Lambda Emerging Writer’s Retreat, and Anaphora Writing Residency. Nefertiti is a 2019 Winter Tangerine Fellow and is currently working on a chapbook entitled the present is a small child. Nefertiti’s work can be found at Winter Tangerine, AfroPunk, Foglifter, and elsewhere. Read more at nefertitiasanti.com.