Rabbit and Rose
I wait in her kitchen
saturated by the stories
Nana stirs into the lemon sauce.
She calls herself
a Canook from Quebec,
mixes both languages for me,
who is allowed only English.
'Ma petite, the sou_sou sauce, eh?
The sou-sou you stir
slowly, slowly.
Attendez, listen,
I add the stories to sweeten
the sou sou, eh?"
She speaks then of her mother,
grandmother, aunts,
strong women,
strangers,
my ancestors.
She imprisons
her long black hair
at the nape of her neck,
though one stubborn tendril escapes.
Like me, I whisper, like me.
Maimed by rules
of priests, nuns,
their daily litany
of being nothing,
a shadow, a sinner;
in Nana's kitchen
the aroma of burnt offerings,
animal carcass,
musky sage,
sou-sou lemon sauce,
lethal to their rules.
I listen and soar along
the downdraft of her words.