Labor
_{Manhattan, New York}

The Upper West Side brims
with Black women heaving Bugaboo
strollers as if maneuvering horseless plows.
I'm walking up Broadway with a white friend
whose mother's food stamps we used
as kids to buy Sour Straws, barbecue
chips, and frosted pints of Cherry Garcia.
While we zigzag between pedestrians,
she argues that there may be as many
white, working-class nannies steering
double-wide strollers as Black.
It's hard to tell, she insists,
whether the white women caring
for white babies are laborers
or mothers. I know we use
the same word to describe work
and the work of giving birth.
Still, I'm tempted to call her bluff.
Today, I do not want children.
I recall instances when I've been mistaken
for mother. Like last May, when a man
clutching a fistful of blush roses
wished me Happy Mother's Day.
Or in a muggy subway car,
as the child beside me rested his head
on my arm. A nearby passenger's eyes
softened at our portrait.
I claimed the sleeping child then,
briefly, I claimed him.
More than once, I've held tightly
the hands of my twin nephews,
who could be confused
for each other—or as mine.
Together, we've waited near
the chasm of the street—gust of cars
stealing their reflections. I've spent hours,
brief minutes, tending to children
I in no way labored for—and then,
with some relief, I have let them go.

Ama Codjoe (2022)