Marcus Garvey Sits for a Bust

The United Negro Improvement Association,
he says, his little bloodshot eyes looking out
of the dark shadows of his overhanging black
brow. His eyebrows quizzical, halfway to a smile.
And over them, an uncreased expanse of dark brown
brain-cover, broad enough to maybe mean genius.
He talks and talks, a baritone that somehow lilts,
the Jamaican vowels a soothing music, talks and
talks, how we are Africans wherever we landed
in the genocidal kidnap, we belong to each
other as siblings, all Africa, all Africans, together
as one nation. We will return, we shall return, the
Motherland waits for us, she is calling to us in the drum-
beats of our hearts, he says. Don’t you hear it sometimes?
I have to say yes, I sure do sometimes, remembering how
sometimes I have smiled at insult and injustice, toed the
yassuh-mister-charley line. Don’t forget a whole continent
hopes we will return with what we’ve learned, what we
have become, even our language, our words, even our
images, even our art, he says, is more theirs than ours. Light
falls from the windows through the antique lace curtains onto
a mahogany table set with his collection of antique porcelain.
His cheeks are silk sleek, his thick lips talking, talking,
the necessity of self-emancipation, only we can free our minds,
think about going home, feeling our Ancestors welcoming
you from the very soil. I smooth gray layers on the wire frame,
watching his face, watching my fingers. He gives off
black light, impossible to capture in my medium. Genius,
genius, yes, and authority. Confidence. And there’s some
madness in there. I stroke the curves, the heavy jaw, the thick,
soft lips speaking hymns of affirmation. Something deep inside
me makes a little ding, like a tiny chime. My black pride
has awakened. My cramped and crooked inner light
creaks straight. Those little eyes. That grand ambition.
I cover the bust with a damp cloth. Same time tomorrow?