In my mother's bedroom behind the family and the jar that holds her wedding-day flowers a painting sits on a shelf pictures It’s a painting of me my eyes almost closed like I’m dreaming My braids hang like coal-colored ropes My face fills the frame so big and so close that if you look long enough it starts to look like a whole land brown hills melting into yellow valleys melting into red riverbeds and even the rivers silver light running smooth over the rocks
When I think back to the first time my auntie Luce painted me I lose myself in the memory of people and places she brings to life with her brushes fortresses in high cliffs and crayon-colored boats by the sea gingerbread houses and coconuts poked with straws for coconut water When I want to hear the stories of Haiti the place where my mother was born I talk to Auntie Luce’s paintings The paintings always talk back
