Tzynya L. Pinchback

Girl with black-sounding name records message on prescription refill line

Seeking panacea for exaggerated 
or phantom pain. 

Four and one-half decades 
black woman flesh, disposable
burdened with pain. 

Pronounced tuh-zeen-yuh—
verb, from Hebrew, meaning
to listen for, hear.

Spelled T-Z-Y-N-Y-A.

The first letter T is a stop. Disrupts airflow. 
Quick, sharp, stac-ca-to
repeat after me, “tuh, tuh, tuh,” hard 
like turmeric, tincture. Something 
ground in teeth
held tight in the hand till 
the fingers cramp and bleed. 
“When I feel tainted, remind me I am holy.” 
Like tumor or tomorrow 
is un-promised.

The next letter Z is a voiced consonant 
(place hand on throat to feel a slight vibration 
when you make the zzz sound) 
like zinnias in the window box
overlooking the sick bed. 
Like what’s his is ours   
and other harbingers of doom. 
Like zip closed your lips and legs 
because shrill and sex 
on a woman 
is danger.

Then, masquerading as a vowel
the letter Y pressed close to N 
to make the een sound.
Like spleen. Obscene 
the fat body left to rot 
with dis-ease. 
“What do you mean 
newfound brain mass, 
origin unknown?”  
Before puncture you must clean 
the skin. In this space name
person over eighteen 
designated healthcare proxy. 

Another letter Y
palatal – your tongue’s bed touching 
the roof of your mouth – dense 
like yes, yellow is the color
a bad liver paints the skin. 
Like yield before pulling into traffic, 
yield before diving into cold water 
or arms of man who will match 
your fidelity with cruelty, 
leave you maligned- a marriage 
of bad cells inside you 
twenty years.  

And finally, the letter A  
but short and frail—
an open back vowel
your lips do not curve round— 
like “Ma-ma, I’m a-fraid.” 
Like yah.
Like Yahweh.
Like G-d.

In which our hero dressed in paper gown writes on the wall of the Radiology dressing room

Please remove your earrings. 
The ones that match the ring
given you that first Mother’s Day. 
Square-cut emeralds you drove 40 miles 
into the city in search of
to dress the pallor of your cheeks 
with something that sparkles 
hours after surrendering 
your remaining hair to 
charity and nostalgia – 
two 16-inch ponytails for wigs, 
long slender braid for mom’s
mom’s scrapbook ordained 
a shrine to all your firsts. 
O, Dear Patient, even now 
you are radiant – but more so
lying on the scanning bed, 
radioactive particles dancing 
in your blood, organs alight 
with the specter of death –  
drifting into twilight sleep, 
the sun setting 
behind your youth.

[Image Description: An African-American woman smiles, head tilted to the side, peeking from behind a red book she is holding with both hands. She is wearing black cat-shaped eyeglasses, long blue hair, a flower crown, and silver rings on the fingers of her right hand.]

Tzynya Pinchback

Tzynya Pinchback is a disabled mermaid, Pushcart nominated poet, and author of How to Make Pink Confetti (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). Her poems have appeared in journals and online including American Poetry Journal, the Aurorean, Midnight and Indigo, Mom Egg Review, Muddy River Review, Poets in Pajamas Reading Series, Up the Staircase Quarterly, also broadcasted on WOMR’s Poets Corner. Her work in progress, Praise Song for the Shut-in, explores the woman body in illness. Finalist for the 2020 Plymouth, MA inaugural poet laureate post, Tzynya is a staff reader for Lily Poetry Review, creator of Behind the Moleskine video series, and blogs at tzynyapinchback.com.