Kenny kissed me on the cheek before getting out of the car
a gentle kiss
in a space on my face where the cheek ends & the lips begin.
“yo, I’ll call you” drifted lazily over my shoulder as he strode across the street
hipshot & arrogant
his hat cocked back at an angle that said he was large & in charge.
the spot on my face where he’d kissed me tingled with warmth.
I watched him cross the street, a remnant of my big sistah role
other men nodded at him respectfully, & women black & white
furtively flirted & followed him with their eyes.
& I felt surprise:
somewhere along my path of acquisition & ambition
he had become a Man.
echoes of my girlfriends’ voices whispered in my head:
“girl, yo brotha is fine”
even Sharon, & her & Kenny had never gotten along.
I watched him make his way across the street, & my eyes told me the voices spoke true –
he was fine:
tall & thick & long of limb,
his frame graced by Adolfo suits, Pierre Cardin shoes,
his neck caressed by thin expensive gold chains,
exuding confidence & Polo.
a Man had replaced the brother who’d given insulting names to all my boyfriends,
bitten all the fingers & toes off my Barbie dolls, then arranged them in obscene positions
with his G.I. Joes.
surely this black Adonis was not the brother who’d given me a 10-pound bag of Vigaro,
telling me it would make my chest grow.
enraged, I’d told my parents – who did nothing.
only son of my mother, she’d ruffled his hair.
only male issue of my father’s loins, Daddy never even lowered the paper he’d been perusing,
merely mumbled from behind it that
“yo’ brotha got a point, men like wimmen wit big titties.”
they never did grow, but Kenny did.
& with the bestowal of that kiss, it was declared that
the brother of my childhood had been laid to rest,
replaced by this man elected by primogeniture to assume the role of Father,
now that the real Father was dead.
I drove home on auto-pilot,
slowly & in awe, thinking, “Kenny grew up!
Do I have to grow up now, too?”
copyright © 2007 KPMCL
