Filene's department store

near nineteen-fifty-three:

An Aunt Jemima floor

display. Red bandanna,



Apron holding white rolls

of black fat fast against

the bubbling pancakes, bowls

and bowls of pale batter.



This is what Donna sees,

across the "Cookwares" floor,

and hears "Donnessa?" Please,

This can not be my aunt.



Father's long-gone sister,

nineteen-fifty-three. "Girl?"

Had they lost her, missed her?

This is not the question.



This must not be my aunt.

Jemima? Pays the rent.

Family mirrors haunt

their own reflections.



Ladders. Sisters. Nieces.

As soon as a live Jemima

as a buck-eyed rhesus

monkey. Girl? Answer me.

From The Venus Hottentot by Elizabeth Alexander. Copyright © 2004 by Elizabeth Alexander. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. All rights reserved.