I Couldn’t Sing for Mama So I Wrote Her a Ghazal
While the Moon tricks half its face black, the Akan people sing, “We do not
really mean, we do not really mean that what we are about to say is true.”
Mom says Ghostface Killah’s “Scar Tissue” is a must-add for my trip to Africa. I hoped music
would repair us as sun warmth does crawling up Cape Town’s belly tricking Wattle-eyes to sing.
Ananse spider tales were carried—teeth and tongue—across Atlantis as a soul
possession. These stories, we’ve come to learn, inspired Africans to trick their enslavers.
The spider said, Tired of truth, I swam up the veins of Earth to ask Sky Master why he gave lilies
to tigers and not a damn thing to spiders. Lucky me, Master didn’t sniff the trick up my spinneret.
Uncle felt need to impress us boys, story-telling on himself: this ‘96 Impala he’s kept dirty
that Halloween Scarface’s Diary released, and the around-the-way girl who turned tricks.
Out in Houston’s Third Ward, kids play dumb to stay kids. Tricks with treats, lure lines spun
by itsy-bitsies. JJ promised Tootsie Rolls and Mr. Goodbars if I crossed a street with his lil sis.
Dead or alive—I’m telling you Mama—Ghana homes the best rappers: Pure
Akan, Kweku Smoke, Ko-Jo Cue: spit fire priests who penned each trick in the book.
What more could a spider want? You’ve already been kind enough to bless me an eye for each
step. Just a shame my eyes won’t stick to your roof of stars to watch over my thick-headed sons.
Cruising Ivory Coast in 2Pac’s 1996 BMW, the gulf’s blue-bloated bodies’ stench’ll flood
your nostrils. Those boat bugs drowned because Jesus didn’t impart his water-glide trick.
This suicide attempt, Mama calls us to say “Love y’all. Sorry. Can’t do this anymore”
A knife is involved, cops tasing her, and I’m posing trick questions to keep her on the line.
The Akan tale ends with “This, our story, if it be not sweet, take some elsewhere and let it
come back to us,” then the trickle of drums, the play of children—so little.
Mar Mar was my childhood nickname. Mama is the last to use it. When we thought she’d die
I tried praying, tried tricking my body back to Sunday school and clay-made myth. I couldn’t.
Precious Lord
are all tricks for play?
Auntie and Uncle lay a trap: “If you love us, put the knife down” “Don’t do this to us” “Talk to
your son” “Mar Mar’s here.” With a gourd drum and trick of the light, this plea would be a song.
How Ananse the Spider Bought All of Heaven’s Stories
leaking from the lungs of my car stereo
a darling cardinal sings for
-give me what i lost at sea
and i pray this be the last poem i write
let the windows roll down
ive yet to smoke a blunt
whole or cruise ghanas veiny roads
frying hip hop cassettes on ivory
coast lean back birds tell me lean back
rock thisa way pray this poem be the last
i write after an ocean drank my grammar
i sang to my Lord mercy on me
my eight mouths all demand to speak
my names Ananse my
names Lefty my names
Mar Mar my names Mama
my names Othello my
names Jean-Michel my name
be every last poemprayer
i write my name Nat Turner
for my nameless family
lynched then and now
rumor has it their stories
float up to you my Lord
who hides them beneath orangepurple
redyellowblue&green trees hides them beneath
white stripes and stars beneath the colorless spots
that bleach my sunstaring eyes come on name
your price is my gran still kneading
her knees like dough is the constellations your
tally marks for war whyd you give us so much
water with salt who lynched grans daddy
threw him to river should i paint my africa
or axe my sleeping masters could you
slow this down could you spin the wheels
of this tale can i write this poem can
this be my last prayer
Martheaus Perkins was born to a single mother in Center, Texas. He is the author of The Grace Black Mothers (Trio House Press, 2025), the co-editor of BRAWL Lit, and a teacher at George Mason University. The name “Martheaus” is a collection of each woman who helped raise him: “Mar-” for his grandmother’s nickname, “-Thea-” for his mother’s name, and “-us” for his big aunties. He can be found on Instagram @martheaus or martheausperkins.com