“Sugar”
My mother sings to me
As she stands in the
Doorway of our shotgun home
Her weight against the wood keeps
Our walls from falling over again
Sugar should be my legal name
It’s the only way she addresses me
I wonder if she meant to put it
On my birth certificate
Or if people decided for her
That it wasn’t good enough
Sugar is bitter
When it slithers
Out of the mouths of
Boys who try to snatch a reaction
From me
But Sugar is sweetest as it rolls
Off the tongue of my mother
When she speaks it
She quickly licks the crystals from
Her lips before they dry her out
“Sugar”
Was what caught my mother’s attention
When my father professed his love for her
On that night in 1995
His voice melted the anxiety
Her mother
Implanted in her about Men like him
Sugar isn’t spoken by my father
He doesn’t address me with the same
Delicacy
Maybe he’s still angry that I stole the name
He held sacred for her
For the child he didn’t know
They would bear
