Dear Toni Instead of a Letter of Congratulation upon Your Book and Your Daughter Whom You Say You Are Raising to Be a Correct Little Sister

I can see your daughter walking down streets of love
in revelation;
but raising her up to be a correct little sister
is doing your mama's job all over again.
And who did you make on the edge of Harlem's winter
hard and black
while the inside was undetermined
swirls of color and need
shifting, remembering
were you making another self to rediscover
in a new house and a new name
in a new place next to a river of blood
or were you putting the past together
pooling everything learned
into a new and continuous woman
divorced from the old shit we share
and shared and sharing need not share again?

I see your square delicate jawbone
the mark of a Taurus (or Leo) as well as the ease
with which you deal with pretensions.
I dig your going and becoming
the lessons you teach your daughter
our history
for I am your sister corrected
already raised up
our daughters will explore the old countries
as curious visitors to our season
using their own myths to keep themselves sharp.

I have known you over and over again
as I've lived through this city
taking it in storm and morning strolls
through Astor Place and under the Canal Street Bridge
The Washington Arch a stone raised to despair
Riverside Drive too close to the dangerous predawn
waters and 129th Street
between Lenox and Seventh
burning my blood but not Black enough
and threatening to become home.

I first saw you behind a caseworker's notebook
defying upper Madison Avenue and my roommate's concern
the ghost of Maine lobsterpots trailing behind you
and I followed you into East Fourth Street and out
through Bellevue's side entrance one night
into the respectable vineyards of Yeshiva's intellectual gloom
and there I lost you between the books and the games
until I rose again out of Jackson Mississippi
to find you in an office down the hall from mine
calmly studying term papers like maps
marking off stations
on our trip through the heights of Convent Avenue
teaching English     our children     citycollege
softer and tougher and more direct
and putting your feet up on a desk you say Hi
I'm going to have a baby
so now I can really indulge myself.

Through that slim appraisal of your world
I felt you     grinning and plucky
and a little bit scared
perhaps of the madness past that had relieved you
through your brittle young will of iron
into the fire of whip steel.

I have a daughter also
who does not remind me of you
she too has deep aquatic eyes
that are burning and curious.
As she moves through taboos
whirling myth like a gay hoop over her head
I know beyond fear and history
that our teaching means keeping trust
with less and less correctness
only with ourselves
History may alter     old pretenses and victories
but not the pain     my sister     never the pain.

In my daughter's name
I bless your child with the mother she has
with a future of warriors and growing fire.
But with tenderness also
we are landscapes, Toni,
printed upon them as surely
as water etches feather on stone.

Our girls will grow into their own
Black Women
finding their own contradictions
they will come to love
as I love you.