Hair, Black.
Black cotton.
Soaked in shower water,
I love the way it feels
Melting into my fingers as
I peel out the coils
Springing from my head
Taut like strings ripe with a song.
Silk.
Spun into curtains that frame my face.
They glisten when they catch the light
Like wisps of liquid diamond.
And under sweat, they form little ripples,
Small black waves, languid lines
That rise and fall
And sit pretty.
A nugget.
I pick one resting at the nape of my neck;
A kitchen favorite I know well and find often.
It is hard candy: a familiar taste to my fingers.
Tug-knead-knit, a gentle unravelling
Releasing the grand prize: sheer satisfaction.
Instinctual and effortless, some innate skill
Passed down through genes and generations.
Rich Savannah.
Not quite forest, modest but lush;
Rich curls hidden in dark musk.
I find my way through you in a secret caress,
A private soothing as I stroll along paths
As familiar as the palm of my right hand
And every shiny black strand.
Skin
That skin, I like it brown.
Magnificent maroon to glistening onyx
Deep, rich and ripe
Steeped in passion
Seasoned in a nectar I can’t quite place.
I like it white, that skin.
Soft, pale melt-in-my mouth type snow
Shades of saffron to hues of rose
Moonlit silver where you open and close.
Yes, I like that bronze teetering on gold
That rich caramel swirl, milk in my cocoa
I’m not sure where I end and you begin
Type skin.
That skin of a million years
Shades of the same story
Told and untold
And retold in the colors that I ache for.
That skin that I taste
In its season of sweetness
I hold in my mouth and my arms, that skin
Of honey and milk and coffee.
And I die so sweetly…
In that skin that fits you just right
Like no one else could wear it like you do.
That skin where I love you
Before all that is right and beautiful
And I know you
Where the all the colors meld into nothing.
And in the shadows,
In that skin
You are the face of God.
Inheritance
What might it look like if our hearts broke for every child
blistered, burned and broken by war?
Their youth hard-boiled by loss and horror.
Their tenderness scorched and hardened into hate.
When history books tell posterity who we were and what we did
will the ink be bitter and biled?
The pages wrinkling with disgust and disappointment—
Our children’s heads shaking in shock and shame.
Where will our descendants find forgiveness for our sins?
Not in the poisoned waters, dead desserts, fallen forests;
bones of a planet we have pillaged:
Arid and acrid. Carcassed.
And who will they blame,
when all of our hands are bloodied?
The ones that killed.
The ones that wringed.
The ones that insisted they were tied.
But
what might it look like if our hearts broke for every child
who is not here yet, but is yet to come?
Nana T. Baffour-Awuah is a Ghanaian writer currently based in New York. His writing has appeared in African Writer Magazine, HuffPost, The Good Men Project, African Voices, and other publications. A strategist with a degree in psychology from Vassar College, he is fascinated by the human condition. He is working on his first novel.
