Sister, the first love of my life/Archive
by ALEXIS MAYFIELD
in Fall 2021
Bakari Akinyele, Freedom/Movement, 2020, 19x23, ink on bristol board
Sister, the first love of my life
To me, you are everything.
So, well before the sun stretches over the horizon
Before the sleep is removed from the corners of my eyes
I press my ear to my phone.
Neither in this life nor the next will I let you be alone in your fear.
If only my rage could rip through time and space
In an instant I could rescue you.
Archive
These days my reflection is hardly ever my own.
With hair parted down the middle like the Red Sea I see
My mother’s reflection staring back at me.
I remember unjust persecution.
When I see my mother’s reflection staring back at me I see
Her mother’s reflection staring back at me.
I remember unmet promise.
I carry plagues and potential. Prayers
etched into my skin reveal salvation and sin
Of the mothers I’ve never known.
Flesh of their flesh my redemption is never my own.
Alexis Mayfield is a roun' da way jawn, scholar, and artist committed to honoring the inherent brilliance of Black girls, women, and femmes. She is a fourth year PhD candidate in the English department at Emory University where she explores pleasure as epistemology and play as methodology and their inherency to Black femme's survival and freedom. In her art, Alexis utilizes play, experimentation, and ancestral connection to make meaning of her senses.