IT'S YOUR MUG ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Monica A. Hand   EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE Rufus is taking me to the Blue Note to see Nina Simone. I try to hold back my excitement so I don’t’ jinx it. Like the time Aunt Ermine was going to take us skiing. Or that time Daddy said he would visit. Rufus is late but still takes time to butter up my mom: Your home is so lovely. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your daughter. His smile is big and juicy. He bounces on his feet when he walks and is never still. He is so skinny and black – the blackest boy in the neighborhood. My mother and I we’re red-bones. And he can talk – a sweet talker like my Daddy. No sooner then we leave my house Rufus says he has to make a quick stop. He doesn’t have to explain. I know what he wants to do. Not many boys ask me out and the promise of seeing Nina Simone it holds my tongue. I wait outside while he does his business. Don’t be mad, he says when he comes out. That man robbed me now I have to go back home to get some more money. Once we are inside his room in the basement of his parent’s house he starts begging me to give him some – just a little he says. I’ve never done it before and I’m not scared just not really interested. I want to go. See Nina Simone. He begs me real hard. Even gets down on his knees like James Brown: Please, please, please. I give in. Stop his begging. It’s over. Quick. No big deal. I don’t feel a thing. We never make it to see Nina Simone. I don’t see much of Rufus after that. And when my mother asks what happened to him, I just shrug my shoulders or tell her I think he’s dead. Just like I tell the kids at school who ask where’s my Daddy. MELATONIN: NOTES ON THE BLACK PRESIDENT a Zuihitsu 50 countries in Africa 50 presidents All the king's horses slain, renamed, maimed One country—50 states 50 chances for change 50 years since desegregation One drop. One drop of blood. One drop of black blood. Should not be confused with melanin - a dark brown or black pigment that is naturally present to varying degrees in the skin, hair, eyes, fur, or feathers of people and animals as well as in plants Creole voodoo: Son of a half-breed..................................Thomas Jefferson Son of an African....................................Andrew Jackson Son of an Ethiopian................................Abraham Lincoln Son of a Black man.................................Warren Harding Son of a Moor..........................................Calvin Coolidge Son of a mulatto.......................................Eisenhower Even the one who abandons leaves his mark You too can be the next Black American president www.obamamask.com —a brain chemical turned on by darkness and off by light can mess with your mind Obama balls tossed east, west, north and south Son of a gun he won Some might have suspected me of trying to make a statement, to dare to go right where I shouldn't and maybe I was. But before you know it, we were crossing a major street holding a giant, stiff black cock —Yazmany Arboleda On the anniversary of MLK's death, in a New York Times article, a Pittsburgh man is quoted: Obama should stop trying to act like King I'll meet you at the mountain top we sing Remember being free (when our children weren't born slaves) So close we can smell the river Feel the drum in our feet. Monica A. Hand is a mother, grandmother, writer, book artist and poet. Her poetry can be found in E. Ethelbert Miller's Beyond the Frontier, Cave Canem's Gathering Ground, Obsidian II, Scarab, and The Mom Egg.   Published in Volume 10:2, Spring 2009.   Read more by this author: Monica Hand