The Bones of Women I Love

by Jeneé Skinner

i.

I tried to find a distant cousin named Carla in photographs and again in Auntie Mack’s voice and again in Ma’s wrinkles while watching TV. The last time she was found was by the police on the train tracks. Her dress was thin as sunlight through leaves. Her nose was the same shade as the red wine slit down her middle. Makeup didn’t hide sixteen well on her. The apple of Carla’s cheeks and chin announced themselves even in death. She wore the same ponytail from grade school in the backseats of Buicks for her johns to play with.

Everyone loved the autumn in her hair. Her laughter was silk against men’s necks. They mistook the rhinestones on her thighs for stars guiding them through the night. They pretended the track marks on her arms were covered in the sequins she wanted from Magnolia Street. Carla’s parents didn’t see the beauty in her wounds, so she ran to the places that did, places that the pastor’s howl, bread and wine, dove voices of the church choir couldn’t reach. Did she dwell in the needle’s spine, the jazz’s tremble, her murderer’s arms for a few moments of life? “It was the only freedom she knew,” her mother said at the funeral.

Read the Essay at this link: https://www.triquarterly.org/issues/issue-160-black-voices/bones-women-i-love