Brown Skin

back in the beginning of august, on a boat ride to Bocas, I was so squashed with others that a baby boy ended up on my lap and fell asleep in my arms. I've got no picture to show for it, but sometimes we aren't supposed to have film to back up every memory. for a moment in time can be precious just as it was received, with no proof for others of it ever happening. it's my memory, and this is what I chose to do with it:

Your brown hand I held in my palm
Coffee eyes peering into mine
The tight curls on your negro scalp,
A whisper from the God of time.

Lips right off an artist’s easel –
Same color as your mother’s palm
A brown much darker than my own
You fell asleep in these white arms.

With eyes so big, a mind so young,
I, the stranger, held your head,
Color of skin matters not to you –
A mother’s smile on a river bed.