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Name
Michael, from the Hebrew, “Who is like God”, an archangel with a sword. My mom’s favorite boy’s name. I’m her only son.
She moved from farm-town Carver to big-city New Bedford back when the South End was the safest place to be, just projects and tenements for new urban families. She was newly married, gave birth at home to my older sister; starting her own family with Nana in tow ‘cause Portugee women stay together.
There she met a boy, pre-teen, skinned knees, tattered clothes too big for his scrawny bones. She said his name was Michael, caught him eating from a dumpster. She never saw him again . . . “I always wondered about Michael . . . .”
Then trouble erupted . . . black berets taking over neighborhood shops, merchants on sidewalks, beaten, bloody. Mom divorced her husband. She left after the riots.
The maternal caravan took root in Plymouth, America’s Hometown. There my mom and dad met, that didn’t last ‘cause Nana didn’t understand the “White men.” I was born the year Patti Smith sang about horses.
They named me Michael. From my dad, Scottish and French, from my mom, Cape Verdean and Native: blood ties that to this day always come back in my face, a hard slap, like razor drawing red line on neck flesh
My Native name is Spider Song. Spider is my guide, a strong Medicine Woman. Spider Grandmother wove the world and I live to sing about it; she tossed her web, laced with dew and stars it lit up the sky. Native custom says that name passes from mother to child. My last name is not my Dad’s.
Mom says: “Doesn’t matter what your name is, it’s who you are.” My name is who I am . . . I take it to my heart, a mean half-breed child, tattered clothes too big for his scrawny bones, homeless on Easy Street where everybody fits easily into boxes. I am a child of Earth Mother….
Spider’s web catches my words. I will live, I will sing.
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