A Poem: Breakfast - 7/23/09

Oh how I loved breakfast.
It was the only time we were together.
Mama, Papa, and me
All gathered around a table happily,
Enjoying bacon, eggs, and flapjacks.
Papa would update us on his work,
That steel stuff was dangerous and kept him on his toes.
It paid awfully well,
Considering what Papa said he made in the South.
All that work in those searing, unforgiving fields
Work designed to forsake human life,
In the name of profit.
But we had escaped that now,
A once destitute family strained by meager wages
That was able to migrate north and begin anew.
What was our first tradition?
Breakfast.
We were so close to each other.
I always hugged my parents before they left;
Mama would clutch me so tightly that
I thought osmosis would take place between her breast milk and my cheek.
Papa would always pat me on the head when I hugged him,
A 'manly' show of affection.
Both left early in the morning,
Papa to the steel mill
And Mama to go clean up houses.
I went to school shortly after,
And always enjoyed going to school full.
Breakfast prepared me for learning,
Something I was good at.
I was the best in my class, though we were all Black.
Mama and Papa saved all they could,
They wanted me to go to some White school in the future.
We would discuss that kind of stuff at supper,
Though that was rough at times...
Mama and Papa dealt with a lot of racism,
Papa especially.
Some White men felt Papa was intruding,
Taking up a job that another White could have.
He'd come home perturbed,
But would be all better by breakfast.
Papa was a strong man though, not backing down.
He was polite to those mean Whites, and refused to quit his job.
Mama was always worried something would happen to Papa,
But he would allay her fears every morning at breakfast.
There was one morning though, where it was different...
He had a look of trepidation on his face,
The wrinkles on his forehead resembling stacks of pressure mounting on him.
He told us that a man wanted his job,
And that he felt his coworkers were plotting against him.
Mama was scared for Papa...and he told her he'd be fine.
Well, Mama got home that evening,
She was still worried. I told her that I hadn't seen him,
And figured he was working late.
Then there was banging on the door,
Loud pounding.
Mama opened the door,
And then it began.

The white men burst in,
At least 7 or 8 of them.
They were carrying my father
Who looked a complete mess...
They had beaten him senseless
His clothing soiled and bloody.
They tossed him on the floor,
And blood immediately began pooling beneath him...
I wanted to scream, but the sound escaped me...
I hid in the kitchen, while Mama dropped down next to him in tears.
She moaned in such deep sorrow that my own tears began to fall,
The man she fell in love with
The man she worked in those fields with,
The man who helped her get to freedom
The father of her child, lay strewn out in his own blood.
The men in sanguine-tinged clothing yelled and cussed at her,
Telling her that she better not tell anyone about this
But my mother, being the strong Black woman she was,
Got up and cussed right back at them.
Not to be content with trading expletives,
A young one bent down and dipped his fingers in my father's blood.
After rubbing his fingers, he slapped Mama so hard, she couldn't help but fall.
And then....they all raped her.
This woman, a descendant of a beautiful civilization,
Had been reduced to being raped while partially immersed in her husband's blood.
My heart had been broken...all my love had been taken from me.
My father, the pillar of strength and my role model, was nothing but a ragdoll,
While my mother, the paragon by which I judged other women and the nurturer of my life,
Was but one ravaged orifice.
My world was....well it wasn't.
Those men left seeds of hatred in my mother...
And once they finished, they proceeded to bludgeon her, until her skull was but a crescent.
Then they departed.
All I could do was stand over them...looking down at my life, a puddle of blood.
Two people that meant so much to me, were but carcasses.
By now it was dark, and only twilight gleamed through the window
Such an appropriately somber setting...
Their deaths would lay in the dark just as their bodies
While it would shine in my head as the moonlight made it so in my eyes.
And so I sat, staring at the remains
Wondering what remained for me.
When love is taken, what is left for thee?
I could not scorn, for that would make me as dark as the Whites
I could not complain, for Negros had no rights
I could not love, for I had no relatives anywhere near
I could not forget, for I would never see hatred so sheer
So I did all I could do...which was drop on my knees and pray
Pray to the Lord that I could live to see the day
My heart was in Satan's clasp and needed extrication
I begged my mighty Savior for peace and salvation
When my knees got tired I layed a few feet away
The last I saw of my parents would be the next day.
For the first time in years, I didn't wake up to breakfast.
I awoke to the putrid odor of death, and the shine of the sun on my mother's necklace
I went to the closet and retrieved what was supposed to be my college fund
After counting it up, I appraised what needed to be done
With my face ablaze, trying to hold back tears
I blew a kiss goodbye to each of my dears
When I closed the door to our home, what happened became the checkered past
It was time to make a future; so to pay homage, I decided to break fast.

-A. Lewis