Musing on Sethe, 2013

Scene. Kitchen. 5 pm Sunset, pink silk seeping in through over-the-sink blind slats. Man and Woman at stove, woman backing away as man ignites the flame, minding baby on her hip. She swings the giggling sunset-pink baby girl, two altar shrines of Oshun and Magdalene barely visible, Spirit peeking in the background. The baby girl throws her head back in tickled gut laughter, milk-stained. The Mother quickly and ecstatically kisses the pale neck of the woman-child. Maybe a bit too lingeringly, a bit too sweetly, with an uncomfortably un-noticeable twinge of melancholy the Father subliminally picked up on unawares.

But he didn't know, for he hadn't read, that the Mother was so bittersweetly grateful that her child had no ring around her neck from blade or chain....