I Remember Singing

I remember singing in my crib, holding onto the top rail. I see myself from a vantage point just behind the crib, the back of my small head, hair curling along my neck above a white tee. There’s no one else in the room and I’m singing towards the door. Or maybe I’m only remembering my mother’s memory, what she’s told me. In any case it’s mine now. My pride in my baby self belting her heart out. Sugar in the mornin’, sugar in the evenin’, sugar at suppertime. Another early memory: in a church basement after the service, smell of overcooked coffee, men’s gray trouser legs, women’s perfume making me hold my breath, faces a blur, and me twirling in my wide skirt showing off my new lacy underwear. I knew even then there was something off in their smiles, that they wished I would stop but couldn’t say so. Be my little sugar. After that I’m wary of going too far. Of being too far. Like watching a documentary of life in a distant country and while your brother is mocking the clothes, the language, you spot yourself crouching beside an old woman at the fire pit. I remember as a teenager stealing pieces of the fudge my mother made for Christmas, eating them under the covers in bed. Thinking: my people hoard their sugar.