Oona. Gaelic for lamb. Ewe. Sheep.
Maybe they named me this to quiet Grandma down.
I’m the ninth granddaughter born weeks before the tenth.
Peg has my aunt’s name and John was named
after our father and grandfather. Tara shares
her middle name with our paternal grandmother
and her first with a character on a 70’s soap.
My name has a past I’ll never know,
my namesake scribed in invisible ink
on some family tree I’ll never see.
Mine’s a name that can be intoned
with tenderness or chanted in rebuke,
too many vowels to stay quiet.
Now I am the title character
of at least three books
I’m a mermaid,
a cavegirl,
a millionaire.
To write my name is to spell out
the mystery of its history:
Oh, why did I get it?
Oh, really, why did I get it?
Never will I know.
All I have is the name.
To say it is to announce difference
to pull back the veil on plainness.
To say my name is to say
that I will always be known.
After “Resurrection” in Renee Watson's Black Girl, You Are Atlas
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