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Marion White Writing Sample

Morceau: Assorted Excerpts (Featuring poetry from Revisiting Dyre Avenue)

9 Division Street on a Saturday

The whole room is candied by the smell of tangerines and my thighs are slick with cocoa butter.

This morning I started out with twin amber dollops on my ashy knees and had every intention of

spreading it down, pushing the summer shine all the way to lumps of my anklebones, but the

stuff has somehow made it all the way up to the folded cuff of these ugly jean shorts and now the

chair makes a terribly wet sound every time I breathe. The pleather is selective, bypasses patches

of greasy skin so as to imprint dirty stripes along the backs of my thighs, and there’s a

thumb­sized hole on the top of the cushion where foam stuffing wheezes out into the crease

behind my left knee. I shift to displace it and hear, immediately, a huff of irritation; gears of a

dull beast grinding. The sticky squeal of the chair comes afterwards, once I’ve settled back into

place with her meaty palm slapped to my temple, the dry river of her life­line curving up to my

widow’s peak.

The tumid fingers of Awa’s other hand curl around the back of my neck, and the way she angles

my chin down to my chest has me instantly obedient. I expect it to begin like it usually does,

with sharp little digs into the baby hairs at my nape, but instead, after a bite of consideration, she

forces my head to tilt right, hand grinding to a stop flush over my ear, her touch brusque and

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oblivious to my perforated cartilage. The weight of her hand is hot and immense and it has me

flushing brightly with the first bursts of pain. Though always unwelcome, the discomfort is to be

expected, part of the process. I jerk down a few inches in the groaning chair, involuntary, and the

brand of her oily palm lifts from my head to yank me back up by my roots. A dull throb rushes

in, my whole ear is pinkened and thumps heavily against my skull, and there’s a piercing white

noise that has me rolling my tongue between my teeth.

The ringing rounds out into full­bellied vowels—maangi dem, Awa says, and then she's leaving,

hustling out of the brand new shop door to pick up the kids from somewhere or something. She

dodges bullet cars as she crosses the street, and I become so engrossed in watching her bulky

frame dance around in that too­small puffy coat that the next five fingers on my scalp come as a

surprise. Fatmata doesn't say anything before she begins—I'm pretty sure we've exchanged less

than fifteen words over the past two years, and none of them when I tripped over her prayer mat

three months ago—just tugs at a section of hair right behind my pink ear, grunts when the kink

doesn't give, works her fingers through it until it's straight enough to pretzel.

She does a full braid in the span of a single, weighted breath, and then tosses it over my shoulder

so I can see, a single bronze sierra that barely clears the curve of my chest. I touch it in a way I

hope appears speculative. I think to her it comes across as displeasure, but there's not much I can

do about that.

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Maman was the one who dropped me off at the salon this morning. As I moved to step out of the

car she decided she had to get the last word in an argument we weren't having. "Speak up,” she

moaned, full of reproach, “I don't want to deal with you coming home all pouty because they

don't do it how you like." In response I said yeah well les chiens ne font pas des chats, though it

must’ve sounded less like telle mère, telle fille and more like ta gueule because her profile gave

me one big eye, rolling. My mother is good at reading between the lines when she tries.

She’s also good at making them—my first grade orchestra instructor told me once that the way

my mother parted my hair was perfection: the pale of my scalp a single tailored pinstripe from

the trench of my hairline all the way down to my spine. I wore my hair in pigtails then,

low­hanging bundles of of kinky, golden hair that Maman would corral in baubled elastics until

they looked like twin rolls of hog­tied sausage. But she could braid, my mother. Only ever a few,

sure, but she’d sit me down on the tiny lacquered stool in the cigar room and take a pick to my

tenderheaded curls for hours.

“O­kay?" Fatmata is asking now. Her voice takes a leap on the o, goes tight and high like she’s

been pinched. Her accent imbues everything she says with a dose of incredulity, and it has me on

the offense regardless of intent. It takes a brief moment to remember the context of her question,

and a second after that to realize that Fatmata certainly doesn’t care one way or another.

“A little bit longer, please. I brought extra hair. I want them long.” Because there’s nothing like

repetition to sink a point home, and because I don’t trust her not to just do it her way.

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Fatmata nods, the shiny bulb of her forehead catching the light as it dips down, and her fingers

are daddy long­legs crawling over my roots.

There's a third woman, who I'd been told would be helping out today but is still a stranger to me,

who comes out of the back room, door hinges wailing as it swings to a close behind her. She's

got a twenty­two weave in, a shock of strawberry blonde that's curled into a long tail over the

smattering of stars on her left shoulder. She's young, I think, probably around thirty. I don't really

know, I try not to stare at her face, I don't want to be rude. She sits behind me, to Fatmata's right,

and immediately opens her wide, glossy mouth.

"Fatmata," the new woman calls, each syllable snapping from her tongue, "Fatmata. Fat­ma­ta?

Fat­ma­ta." In the mirror, her reflection reaches over to rap one lemon­yellow claw on Fatmata's

thigh and Fatmata gives in with a lurch of surprise, one that wrenches my head back in kind.

There’s an absent pat of apology to the cloud of untamed hair at the crown of my head, and then

Fatmata’s pulling an earbud out of her ear, tinny drum beat spilling down her neck as it falls.

She makes a curious, open noise, but her schwa is colored with the usual aigu and so it ends up

sounding more like she’s greeting someone. The vowel rolls over in my head until it loses it’s

intention of inquiry, until I can replicate it with a new inflection: ay, Fat­ma­ta.

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"Fatmata," Woman number three gusts, almost endeared, and the slew that rushes from her

mouth is too incomprehensible to me. Wolof is rhythmic and compelling, but the French inside

of it is plucky and sparse, gets swallowed down so remorselessly with every glottal stop that I

lose track of the conversation quickly even as I let the words sit and breathe inside my ears. The

sun is low and red now and the metal arms of the chair are tacky from that tangerine smell, and it

feels like I’m in a different world, like I’m in theirs. The book in my lap slides off my slippery

thighs, so suddenly that at first I don’t realize it’s mine, and lands between my ankles on the

broken foot­step. I can’t be bothered to reach for it. Their fingers are wet with gel and so quick,

and I can’t possibly interrupt them, not in their own home.

I used to read the big blue book when Maman would braid my hair, the one with the shiny cover

and hundreds of coin­sized pictures on the inside. I learned to drink le lait only from les vaches

heureuses, that my lady purse should always be rose, that ma jupe est la plus jolie Maman,

n’est­ce pas? and I would read the hardcover from title page to le glossaire whether I was sitting

for two bulging twists or twenty skinnies.

Right now I’m sitting for nearly two­hundred, a number so high Maman says it makes her joints

ache just thinking about it. Fatmata starts each new braid, the first few inches twining quickly

between her fingers, and the third woman continues them, grabs each unfinished tuft and works

them like they're bundles of dry straw. I'm nervous that the way she finishes them won't be the

same as the way Fatmata starts them, but I tell myself I can’t do anything about it. The mirror is

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too far away to be useful, barely half my head in the frame, and I don't know how to ask to

confirm each braid's quality without sounding like an asshole.

Awa comes back then. She’s preceded by baby birds who wiggle through the doorway a few feet

in front of her, smile­to­smile and chirping.

Umu has clear heart beads on the ends of her rows and I can tell she likes the way the clack when

she moves, the way they draw attention, plastic smacking together where the black braids swing

wildly around her shoulders. She’s obnoxious because she’s only just turned eleven, and when

Fatmata gets down on her mat for salah I like to think she’s praying that this girl grows out of

her newfound entitlement sooner rather than later. Umu’s foil is the most darling: little Masu

with his bowling­ball head and Chiclet teeth and baby ears. He’s about to finish Kindergarten

and he’s coy about it, counts aloud the number of chicken nuggets he has, hums the alphabet

under his breath while slumps in his chair, bored out of his mind, belly a swelling balloon

beneath his striped polo. He likes to smile at me, white square chompers gleaming in his shiny

brown face, likes to smile at everyone and shriek along to the pop music streaming from his

tablet, but I don’t think we’ve ever spoken; I’m bad with kids. Simon used to roll around on the

rug and play with my toes and pat my shins while I cried under the iron spikes of Maman’s hair

pick, but I’d always ignore him.

To be honest, Awa’s not too great with kids either. I don’t try to actively critique her parenting

style because what do I know about being a single mom from Senegal with two hyperactive

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children, but every time I see Masu I think about how he likes to play dress up with his mother’s

purse and how she, in turn, likes to slap it from his tiny hands and shove him into the back room

to pray.

She does it now, like she can hear my thoughts, snatches her bag from where it’s hooked over the

happy curve of his shoulder. I look to my lap and rub my thumb along the inseam of my shorts,

meander along the cocoa­buttered edge, lean into the pain blooming across my scalp so I don’t

have to look at the downturn of his mouth. Awa stuffs her pleather satchel into the cabinet below

the hairdryer and sends Masu back between the double swing doors. This is when I wish my ears

were still ringing, or maybe I just wish Awa would slam her stocky hand right over the side of

my head, grate it until my ear turns red and swells shut and I can’t hear Masu in the other room,

voice solemn and thin, reciting words plainly and phonetically. But then Awa is sitting on a stool

to my left and tilting my head with the blimp of her hand against my locked jaw, and I find

myself unwillingly impressed. She sets about her work with an urgency and seriousness that I

can appreciate.

Thirty fingers weave in and out, graceful even in their greasiness, and Masu warbles tenor from

his new perch at the window seat, today’s rendition of his pop top­ten. His cheeks are round and

stuffed and spotted with glaring taillights from Division Street.

A surprisingly solitary child, more than happy to have only the breath­fogged windowpane as an

audience, youthful skin so terribly thicker than any mother’s callus.

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Jamaican Beef Patty Visits the Hair Salon

When sweaty brown legs meet sticky pleather chair I smell my hair burning, even over you, spicy folded moon. You glow hot like the comb at my nape. Unwrap the foil from your skin and you shrivel in the basket of my fingers. I wedge you behind my front teeth, steaming mash, yellow pastry and pulverized meat glued to my palate with a thin coat of hairspray. I lick you down. You fall whole and heavy, filling the pouch of my cheek. Freshly spun curls shiver against my grinding jaw. Torn apart from pressure, the meat inside you so soft I barely work to swallow.

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Miss Jamelliah She always on that phone Miss Jamelliah. Big, brown and cordless, covered in grease. A hot iron in each hand so she brings up a shoulder, wedges that phone into her skin. It glides to a stop just past her cheek, sinks into the open crater of an ear with a lobe as long as my thumb. While she talks she tosses fistfuls of yellow rice on her wide, flat tongue. To eat up time I count the grains that skip down her chest when she misses. I’ve tallied enough to keep me in this chair for years.

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Throne Room Marmalade stucco with doily crowns. An accordion divider that finally shutters after a long, convincing kiss from the tip of my boot. A soap opera plays on the big box outside. Tinny declarations of love leak in through gossamer corners. My quiet skin is whitened by a chain of lights above the sink that wink and stutter as they please. The air is wet and flammable, a bouquet of hairspray that sleeves my arms. When I stretch I’m touching opposite walls. Taped right to that coppery paint, laminate slick in the dim light, a sign: If you sprinkle when you tinkle please be neat and wipe the seat!

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The First Person to Ever Call Me Gorgeous A man with slack eyes and blue skin.

I’ve got curlers in my hair and three dollars in my pocket

when I slip out the salon and into the bodega. Out front:

a jaundiced sign, a tipsy plastic chair. Inside, light is buzzing. Strong and cool,

turning my white shorts purple. My yellow hair shining green.

Waiting on line for a beef patty,

pressing fingers to my pocket stuffing. Leg jangling, still waiting, people watching me. Not old enough to be out on this block

alone but I’m hungry.

And this man, he’s hungry too, he’s telling me how gorgeous I am. How pretty my eyes are, boys must tell me all the time. The back of his hand, wet sweat and spilt liquor, rolling slowly over my little brown shoulder.

My empty stomach rolls in tandem— the patty is so near! Imagine that

golden crust crushed between my teeth, hot meat slipping

over my chin, mm. But no heavy hunger is worth

this indigo man.

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Curtis Mayfield and Four Fingers of Bourbon is the Closest I Can Get to God, but

I’m trussed up in some new light­wash denim, fresh whiskers puckering at the tops of my thighs,

because today we’re going to church. My father goes to that Baptist husk on Madison avenue,

the one with empty white walls and an ocean of white people, and I’m tagging along in my tight,

pressed jeans because faith entertains me and because I know he likes the company. Plus there’s

a breakfast joint down the block with a chef who’s comically choleric and can fry an egg just

how I like: devilishly good, because what better way to offset godliness than to make a mess of

an embryo and lick the yolk from your fingers.

Worship takes place at the tail­end of morning, a lifetime past rush hour, so we can drive down

the narrow parkway on the East side without scraping paint or clipping mirrors. My father pulls

his navy two­seater up to the curb and idles there, sun cooking the hood and straight exhaust

rumbling in one loud, slow snore—I can hear it from the porch where I’m knocking my feet into

my shoes. I indulge in the impulse to scramble back inside and snatch up things I don’t need, and

by the time I finally pop open the tiny passenger door it’s to catch him in a terrifically

over­staged yawn. He doesn’t bother to cover the gape of his mouth, and it's like this I can see

every tooth. The flat bunny pair, square and white like the sugarless gum he chews; the diamond

canines that puncture his lip when he grins; the narrow four on the bottom row that jut out like

loose light pegs. I’ve got all the same ones, as if he pried them free one­by­one from his own

mouth to drop them into mine, and I never got braces because I like them so much, I like that he

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gave me his teeth. He gave me his nose too, but it’s slightly smaller, shrunken, like when he put

it in the dryer he hit warm/hot instead of tumble­dry.

Below me is a cavity upholstered with honey­colored leather, and my jeans protest the descent.

The zipper’s teeth are not like mine or my father’s, they’re burnished metal and they hook into

my stomach and pinch my flesh as I lower myself into the car—the car—a rear­engined,

three­seventy­five­horsepower speeding ticket guarantee that he cleans every few days but only

drives every other week. “You must be happy,” I huff, because I know he is, he adores this

goddamned car. I’d probably love it too if I fit, if my knees didn’t push up into my chest and the

silver button on my jeans wasn’t gunning for a cesarean. I shove a thumb below my waistband to

detach the zipper from my bellybutton and it peels up like tape, leaves behind a red, maze­like

brand. I tell my father I’ve been marked by the Devil! to which he tuts and joggles the clutch, but

I can see the skin around his eyes ribbing as he beats back a smile, so I kick off my flats and turn

on the stereo.

When we’re in for a long­haul like the four­hour trip up to the cape—or, worse, the half­day

excursion down south—we take the mid­size and he puts on the satellite comedy station because

it’s the only one that all five of us can ever agree on. But this ride caps at twenty­five minutes,

not to mention the fact that this car definitely wasn’t made for long­hauls. It’s got stiff springs

and low­profile summer tires, doesn’t even have a working radio, and he keeps only two CDs in

the glove compartment, so there’s a fifty­fifty chance we’re about to listen to either jazz­sampled

rap or a lengthy concerto. I have a split­second to guess before the center console is backlit

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orange and, naturally, I guess wrong. I probably shouldn’t have, these days he’s been more

partial to Dudamel’s overtures than anything else, but a girl can dream. And it’s not as though

the L.A. Philharmonic mortally offends me. Rather, I’m about to sit through a good half­hour of

faux­gospel and uninspired organ riffs, so I’d like something a bit thicker to cushion the blow.

We’ve barely made it three blocks before he’s turning down the volume and inhaling like a

liturgist. “You should really learn how to drive stick,” he says, quite like he always does. Then

he continues slowly, with what appears to be consideration but is in all likelihood an intended

suspense: “If this is the only car around with a full tank of gas and there’s a zombie apocalypse

you’ll need to know how to operate a manual transmission or you’ll die.” His words are trailed

by a heavy, sweeping viola motion, and he looks awfully pleased with the dramatics.

“Okay, fair. If ever there is a need to escape a herd of mindless, reanimated corpses I absolutely

want to do so in style. Do you think Maman will lend me her black Chanel sunglasses? How sick

would that be? Picture it."

He sighs at my vanity, so I make a show of rolling my eyes heavenward and reaching for the

sound control to dial it a few notches past comfortable listening volume. First­chair violin sounds

a bit electric like this, and it gets me asking him to please add Lenny Kravitz’s Baptism to the

bullet car’s minimal CD collection, because not only is it disgustingly fitting but red is also my

favorite color.

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“I thought your favorite color was blue,” he says, brow furrowed, and it’s kind of amazing how

he knows so much, wipes the floor with the bovine contestants on Jeopardy every night, emptied

tumbler slack in his hand like knowing the exact year De Waele won the Tour de France is no

big thing, yet: “Or is it purple?”

And normally I’d harp on it, but today is a holy day and I’ve got Jesus inside me or something,

so I let it pass. “No. But feel free to throw in some Prince, too, I don’t mind.”

Sadly, he doesn’t seem to appreciate my punchy, quick wit. His answer is in the sudden jerk of

the car as he switches gears and my elbow colliding violently with the door handle, but I know

he’s not actually put­out. He can't be, today is The Lord's Day! and while I may not understand

the Holy Spirit no matter how many times it's explained to me you can be damned sure that he

does, and his generous attitude is something I exploit to the best of my ability—but only on

Sundays, because I only sin when I know I'll be forgiven.

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Cornerman There he is again. Squatting on a shattered milk crate, fingering the sidewalk grout. He calls out to me, addresses me by everything but my name. When I don’t reply he trumpets, he thinks I am too high­and­mighty. He goes for my shoulder but misses, ends up pawing at my arm. This flesh is softer and perforates beneath the dirty sickles of his nails. He tells me I have beautiful skin but recants, immediately and vehemently, after I shrug off his touch. Voyeurs are careful with their glances now, furtive. Lockjaw has their thin lips stiff. This howling man! He’s made a pariah out of me.

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Nighttime/Mountain Rumbling and swollen the sky goddess has swallowed the sun. Nighttime mottles rising curves and sweet­talks soft into her hair while she whittles mountain peaks and digs footholds in their faces. Then she parts her legs to the dark and births the moon and seven sisters.

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Down Marcus Garvey Boulevard There is a bend, and around the bend there are men, men who do a lot of talking when the sun is up. And when the star is down they use their hands.

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Walking Home on the Right Side

Two plank benches, thick and sturdy for thick sturdy plank men.

Pendulum arms and the overpass

lead me straight to them, those benches and their men, three men

who tonight are not planks. They wobble and droop,

slur with slippy plum lips.

My hand doesn’t fit in my coat pocket, no, but it fits just fine in the pocket of his palm.

Plank bench middle man. I’m caught

when my pendulum arm swings too wide.

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Carry Me to You, My Seven Sisters So familiar with celebrity, you middle­aged hot b­type stars. Collective warmth blisters the skin on my cheek, skin that is lightyears duller and made of your dust. I fit with you: a naked cluster bluish and throbbing. When I press fingers up in askance your light burns through them. A hundred thirty parsecs isn’t far when you’re this radiant.

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This Couch has Grown into a Blind Spot

It’s darker near the piping, a deep­sea navy where there’s no risk of exposure. Starched cotton

gathers at the edges in an clumsy play at upholstery; baggy and puckered like muscle sheathed in

loose skin. It’s easy to pinch, to take the swathes of cotton flesh between my fingers and tug until

I hear the cracked exhale of a thread breaking, until there’s a messy fringe of broken yarns

kissing the air between my bluing knees.

The couch is saggy and lifeless but swollen with bated breath. It’s greying and faded like a

sun­stricken glaze because the indigo is fake, just a thin film of sediment that erodes with every

chafe of my elbow. But this gradient and its blotchy nuances disappear under the cover of

curious hands. My fingers catch on the blue lip and curl over the brim, glance off an aged

boxspring that furls against my palm when my weight on the couch is displaced. I press down

and stiffen my arms to stay balanced, but the birdbones in my right wrist crunch under the strain,

so my body lists left. Then my forearm is falling into the brackish trench between the cushions

and food crumbs are grinding into my skin, potato chip shavings and gritty cheese dust and large

grains of salt that cling like they’ve been glued. My fist gets sucked inside, punches straight

down to the couch’s frame, and the hard impact of cold metal has me jerking free with a hiss. I

stuff my hand beneath the stovetop of my thigh.

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My heart is a massive, thudding clot in my trachea, and I listen to the couch creak slow as I

breathe. Even slower: eyes roving over each deep­set cushion, every imperfection plucked out

for scrutiny. There’s a stain near the crease; a borderless, red­brown crust, the dirty dribble of its

archipelago spit­bathed into a smear. It flakes off like rust when rubbed, packs in beneath the

glossy overhang of my nectarine pinky nail.

It’s a varnish color is so inappropriately childish it’s distracting. When I trace coalescing circles

into the fabric by my knee my nails circumnavigate in a ripple of fluorescent flame. The hue is

loud enough to block out sound of air whistling into my lungs, loud enough to mute the impatient

tapping of a foot that isn’t mine on the hard wooden floor.

With one noisy orange nail I scratch into existence nonsensical shapes and tally­marks until color

is lifting from the couch, lines whitening like the scrape on my thigh—it's a long one, slashed

upwards from my knee and punctuated with a small crescent. I’m not sure how it got there, but I

know it’s new because it’s only just starting to pinken where the tail end whips beneath my

shorts.

Except it doesn’t turn pink because my skin is turning colder, and soon my leg is a scratchpost of

blue veins. And the scratching, like all my other gestures, leaves me aching and anxious. It takes

effort to force my hand back into my lap, and even when I do I can’t stop fidgeting. I pop my

joints like kindling, push my thumb into the fold of my elbow. My eyes find that ruddy crease

stain again. Its coastline is slightly more blurred now, worn from worrying, though the ridges of

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my fingertips have been filled mostly with blue. They’re tacky, like they’ve been cradled in a

soft pad of ink. The dye tinges in excess, draws out all the red in my skin, and I wipe it off onto

my bare thighs in a series of hurried presses that mottle like gangrene and linger like bruises.

Hands now clasped together in a fit of restraint, my unease manifests in a bloom of cold sweat.

My arms pimple like ostrich leather and slide against the couch’s stiff back in all the wrong

ways. It’s sticky­hot and uncomfortable. The padding has been squashed flat, compressed into

dense, cotton­covered wedges, and the lack of give beneath my ass has me squirming until I’m

half on my side, legs curled up and toes flexing. There are no throw pillows. The couch is only

two cushions wide, can barely fit these four legs and the yawning space between them, but it’s

got armrests on either side that are plenty broad for propped feet or chicken­wing shoulderblades

or the slope of a limp neck.

At this rate my whole body is tinted blue, each warm limb discolored like a pie­stained mouth,

and I blend right in with this soiled couch. I think about holding my breath, sinking into the dark

fissure behind my back, peppering myself with old foodstuff.

There is only one shaft of sunlight to highlight my new cobalt skin, and it’s splintered by sharp

blinds. It reaches over my kneecap in stripes of viscous albumin and makes the couch blanche

under a new wash of grey. By the time the light is hot enough to cook with my shorts have been

ripped to my ankles, so it’s got both my bare legs to broil. They bake with a burnt smell so

cloying it makes my eyes water, but the skillet of my temple turns leaking saline into vapor. The

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sun chars a thumbprint into my calf, smokes the skin just below the bend of my left knee, grills

tandem prints into my hips. Here on this bluish couch I am forcibly seasoned, my bones ground

into broth and flavored with a spice that curdles in the back of my throat.