With My Name In Your Hand:
For the Free Women of Color Who Lived

by Angela Williams Bickham

I stand in need of a naming plaque.

A plaque, a thing, a recognition.
A thing on which to lay
my name in your hand. Now
woven in for you
to accept. My name
still surviving
as it always
has.

I resist
the urge to see
me broken. Into pieces. And nameless. 
All preconceptionally desired and defined.
I am no thing. I am not this plaque.
It carries my moniker only in part -
a part of which you still see.

I am my name.

I, my friend, my fiend, my child, lived
a whole life. Lived
and even the wind wrapped itself around my flesh
on its way North, South, East and West.

Give me now my Naming Plaque.

or maybe I should say:

I give you now my Naming Plaque.

Carry me in your hand like stones.
Find me within the fibers. Let my edges sear you.
Let my name heal you.
Let me bind my name to your fingertips.
Button your brow
and know that I existed.
I exist. You exist.
We live as we exist. We name ourselves.

Let my attempt to convince you stop. I had no master.
I named myself. Even now,
you are the census taker.
You are asking me my name, not the reverse.

If you must see me as you see your self,
see me in your name. See me in your threads.
See me in your daily bread. Feel me in the wind.