Brown
was the new black
in nineteen ninety-three.
I bought the
jumper in The Gap in New
York, my first
ever purchase in another
country. I was
twenty-two, spending my days
at a library in
Harlem, researching
James Baldwin. I
was self-conscious each day
on the bus, my
skin had never felt quite
so white. The biggest city I could imagine
and I was a young
woman alone; the voices
were from TV, the
streets a mystery. The jumper
long gone but I still
remember
the weight and weft of the wool at my neck.
** Very much a fragment, but I have hopes it might go somewhere with some work and some time to marinate.
sounds pretty good even as it is!
ReplyDeletesome good ingredients in the marinade Lisa, esp the final line phrase. (I love the process of seeing the directions such fragments take.)
ReplyDeletea perfect last line
ReplyDeleteI do like this as it is. The links between Baldwin and colour
ReplyDeleteI agree with Robbie. A perfect fragment.
ReplyDelete