You May Have My Mama

everyone said my accent was a relic of my mama
it’s what she stained me with

she was a big woman who was a hippie in the ’70s
a republican in the 90’s and an atheist now

she left a lot of places she worked at
cause as mama put it
they were rude

and you should never be rude to mama

she’ll deal you every single part of speech
with the machine on her face
she colored pink every morning

she taught my sister and me how to really be

the morning of her funeral it rained on a hundred hibiscus blossoms
but stopped by the time we buried her
and before she was covered in loose junk from the ground

the sun kissed her

and i bet she was smiling

when I talk I feel my mama
I hear her boiled rhythms and frozen bass notes when I speak
her affection goes about padding the red and blue passageways

in the spaces where a spirit might be