Poetry - Issue 8 | February 2010
Four poems by Mahogany L. Browne
Brooklyn Tongue II
The woman makes herself at home in the seat of a
fold out chair. The storefront is her day gig. She sells
loose cigarettes for two quarters until her red hoodie
bulges, tumor sized, on her right side. She uses her left
hand to wave to the children coming home from
school. They live in her building or up the block.
“They my babies,” she sighs. The crease between her
cheeks and nose look heavy, some days. But on good
days, when the sun is high and the wind whistles thru
Crown Heights like a young man with his first paycheck,
she wears a jet black wig cropped behind her un-pierced
ears and powders her nose to dull its shine. Her smile
dances of several missing teeth. The butt of her cigarette
is a bronze pendulum, swinging amber into the dusk.
About the author
Mahogany Browne, host and curator at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, is a Cave Canem Fellow who facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country. She owns an on-line marketing and distribution company for poets. Mahogany is editor of His Rib: Stories, Poems & Essays by HER and author of Destroy Rebuild & Other Reconstructions of the Human Muscle. She has released five LPs, including the live album, Sheroshima. These Brooklyn Tongue poems are from the forthcoming collection, SWAG (Penmanship Books).