She is the chocolate daughter of the dad who left
and is chocolate like her.
She is the beauty queen of her race, the scarf-covered head in the theater,
the woman with the wild jaguar eyes and full berry red lips,
her drama dripping out of her with every syllable,
every in-breath,
every click of her tongue.
She sings to me in her Gordy voice, happy bubbles in her cheeks,
leaving me her affection on my answering machine,
visualizing the smile that will cross my face when I listen.
She speaks in her own dialect, the Language of RaShawn,
whether she is drifting off in mid-sentence, echoing a pizza man from Domino's,
or tightening her creamy brown forehead in motherly sadness
from hearing my stories as her chest weeps.
She is the round-headed Jamaican girl who sits in the sun and smiles
when she sees little biscuit children with shiny colorful eyes coming to sit on her lap.
Underneath her drama queen face paint is her cry for the man, the phantom of her babyhood.
Through macaroni and cheese, she paints a picture for me.
"I think I want to find him."

Copyright � 1999 Heather Noonan
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"