a black girl's kitchen

flat irons are like skillets to a black girl’s hair

and hot combs are frying pans sizzling the grease from our scalps

smoke billowing up from straight parts between fish braids

and no wonder the world calls us hotheads

my mother kneads my head like dumplings on sunday afternoons

in between her thighs, shaping my thoughts with her fingers

my hair ends up straighter than spaghetti and softer than her mashed potatoes

her hands dance up from my medulla oblongata and salsa their way on over to my frontal lobe

she’s combing my beliefs into patterns that will eventually spell out presentable 

and she’s brushing through years of ancestry of aunties with thick curls and grandmothers with with salt and pepper bangs

i’m in my mother’s kitchen or she’s in mine making something off the top of her head and off the top of mine

either way, flat irons, hot combs, skillets, frying pans and grease have always been a part of ancestral recipes

whether its fish braids or fried fish…

black girls never leave home starving.