Remica L. Bingham-Risher

Remica Bingham is sweet and smart. She is funny and serious. She is a professor, wife, mother and a radiant presence in the world of poetry. I do not know anyone who does not love Remica and her poetry. We were sisters in Atlantis with another friend ( Honoree ) but that is private. She drove from Norfolk to DC and back in one day to lift the world of public radio to a new height. Dan Murano and I are so happy with her work and her kindness to the world, that we wanted to share her. -- Grace Cavalieri

Remica L. Bingham-Risher earned an MFA from Bennington College, is a Cave Canem fellow and a member of the Affrilachian Poets. Her first book, Conversion (Lotus Press, 2006), won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award and was published by Lotus Press. Her second book, What We Ask of Flesh, was published by Etruscan Press in February 2013. She is the Director of Writing and Faculty Development at Old Dominion University and resides in Norfolk, VA with her husband and children. She is currently finalizing a book of interviews entitled Blood on the Page?African-American Poets from the Black Arts Movement to the Neo-Urban Modernist Movement: Interviews, Essays and Poems.

Missing You

Everybody sings it. It can be hollow

juked or spare. I grew up there

in the middlearth of music.

All along they used it and I was

unaware, until the reel-to-reel resurfaced and my voice—

squeaking, grainy, blare—mimicking Diana, rooted

out the heart of the heart, Tell me why the road turns?

No one had the answer. We were a convoy

in the midst of melancholy and joy. Little in-betweens,

before and after the final mix, this is where

the art lives, the open of the full mouth kiss.

My parents did this. They loved each other.

They burdened me. Our history now—its brass and clang—

something like a crier’s flame, a burning knot I cannot name.

Wildflower

What’s held in the blooming heart—smoke and irises, abalone shells
the once-was home left opened and swept clean,

     planted rows tended and harvested
          fat with ripening seeds,
         death of one body, birth of another,
     resting place and starting line
   where the runners tuck and wait for the gun,
the volley of the bullet set free?

Baby Be Mine

The song is honeymint

on your tongue. In your sleep

you answer my questions—

There’ll be no more mountains

and give commands—

Make sweet love this way.

Blind root worker, you spin

into my hollows, half-dreaming

the morning’s music

making turnstiles of us as I wake.

And when good sense plagues me—

fear of what could be—

you are still beside me, singing

As long as we believe.

As Mary

When God says Move

you recognize the miraculous

annunciation the angel’s voice

You’ve been praying

haven’t you? To be duly used?

He sends the man who takes you

as you are and now this:

what you’ll briefly hold as kin,

often but never fully your own—

Forsake the gifts if you want

the angel warns see if they’ll come again

Equal Measure

Daughters teach you

everything. I know this

but still ask my husband if he can

braid my hair

because he’s been away

from his daughter

nine months now

and is sick with idleness.

We are in the kitchen,

I’ve just returned from a trip—

three more nights he’s learned

to live alone—

and my hair is one large wet mess

nothing like hers in the school picture

after hours of clips

and combs and care.

Just as he has always said it,

he says Yes while I part

two equal measures, then condition

the length, make it easier to tame.

He stands beside me, patient

as the waiting season.

When he suffers the mass,

fashioning thick plaits, he says

lean and please

and some words in between but

I am taken up by the tenderness

of him, his hands

most like the hands of familiar

women, learned and unafraid.

In bed, we dream of different things—

I am covered in a flurry

of his warm skin. All night

he is collecting dolls,

beads, little shoes;

he is worn thin

with searching.

In the morning,

after I’ve given him

so little room

to sleep, I find the plaits

have survived my battling,

my body at rest only when pressed

in odd curvature against his.

His work is something like a miracle

the way it’s lasted

and, as I haven’t learned yet

to bear all his undoing,

I comb out the plaits but leave

their waves and impressions—

my hair, full as when I was a girl,

my heart, filled with his sorrows.

Ways to Please a Five-year-old Superhero

Don’t call him The Blur. Do teach him to spell it.

Play the fastest music you can find,

watch him as he dances.

Tell him he’s a master

and no one’s close to keeping up.

Explain fish scales, shadows,

ocean waves, and underwear

when he asks about their purpose.

Kiss his father in the kitchen

at the sink. Kiss both his cheeks

next. Say, You were right

that time, when he argues with his sister.

Buy toy cars in red and yellow metal.

Leave them in a shiny bag

on his bed. Let him sit

in the ‘man chair’ upstairs,

though it often swallows him when he rocks.

When he gives you dandelions

pretend they are irises.

When he misses the toilet

applaud him for making it

to the bathroom.

If he wants to climb

in your lap, all arms and eyelashes,

give him a hand up; don’t squirm

when his elbow skewers your ribs.

Make him drumsticks for dinner,

hide the vegetables in the rice.

He’ll say You’re the best

cooker I know if you’ve done it right.

Let him run in the house.

Try not to yell about steps and corners.

When he asks Am I good

at being good? Tell him

though he’s wiggling from his seat

with stained hands and shirttail wagging

he’s the strongest, he’s the fastest, he’s the best.