#pothem

"the color of," after Angel Nafis. 1. On the subway platform the woman with the veiled head asks politely for directions in a language that i do not speak. On the sidewalk, i am a frantic east-side-bound bundle all five feet of blur and tousled hair. HEY. WHAT ARE YOU, ARMENIAN? In the theater in Fort Greene, the blonde woman pulls the trigger on my FAVOURITE performance. i slingshot back: i am from here. She hisses to her cohort that i have very interesting features. 2. The white men follow my sixteen-year-old body up avenues. The white men hold my sixteen-year-old body too close. The white men whistle at my sixteen-year-old frame from their pick-up trucks while i wait for my mother to pick me up from the public school parking lot. The white men look nothing like my father. 3. The only person i have ever known to look like me is my father. 4. i bet you tan real well, olive. How your face paint be mixed, olive? What you call that color? Where’d you get that color? How’d you get that curl, olive? How’d those eyes get to be that shiny brown, olive? white brown olive smooth smooth olive What’s your middle name, olive? How you say that name, olive? What’s your daddy’s name, olive? What’s your daddy’s mother tongue, olive? off-white olive. You a white olive. green green olive Watch your mouth, green olive. smooth shiny snaggle toothed olive Snagged my tooth on yr red pit, olive all over your bed, olive all over your legs, olive olive living with the cream, olive olive drink all the cream, olive up to your ears in the cream, olive floatin on your back in the cream, olive smooth smooth cream, olive. olive drink up the bleach, olive bleached olive bound up olive bent over olive the color of sun washed out, olive tie your shoelaces olive don’t trip over olive Where you put those features, olive? Where you fit them all tidy? smooth smooth like your daddy’s mother tongue, olive like your daddy’s crooked nose, olive like your daddy’s crooked language, olive with your crooked body, olive crooked nosed olive with your daddy’s curl olive don’t speak the language, olive olive don’t speak the language Drink up olive smooth smooth and swallow.