Locomotion Read Free

would be real mad if I told the class
about his angel voice.

EPISTLE POEM
    Hey Pops,
    Â 
    Today our teacher showed us this poem by this poet guy named Langston Hughes. It made me remember something. That long time ago when you read us that good-night poem about that guy who loved his friend. And it made me kinda think that maybe Langston Hughes is the same guy who wrote that one because his name sounded familiar. Underwater familiar—like I dreamed it sort of. I’m not gonna try to explain. I figure you understand. The only thing about what Ms. Marcus read was it wasn’t a poem poem. She said it’s called an epistle poem and it was a letter. I didn’t know a letter could be a kind of poem. So now I’m writing one to you to say that even though we can’t do stuff like go to the park on our bikes or eat hot dogs from that cart where the guy who always wore the Yankees cap yelled at me for being a Mets fan but gave us a discount if we bought four hot dogs—and we always did—and ate them standing there arguing with him. Even when the Mets lost again and again. I just wanted to say that even though we can’t do that kind of stuff no more, I haven’t forgot none of it. I’m gonna go see if I can find that poem about that guy loving his friend. I hope it’s by Langston Hughes.
    Â 
    â€”Love, Locomotion

ROOF POEM II
    Up here the sky goes on and on like something
you could fall right up into.
    Â 
    And keep falling.
Fall so fast
and so far
and for so long you don’t
have to worry about where you’re gonna live next,
    Â 

where you gonna be
    Â 

if somebody all of a sudden
changes their mind about living with you.
    Â 
    Up here, you could
just let your mind take you
to all kinds of beautiful places
you never been before in real life
Tahiti, Puerto Rico, Spain,
Australia with all those kangaroos hopping around
and then you can come on back
and call the place you come back to
    Â 

home.

ME, ERIC, LAMONT & ANGEL
    Once I saw a house fall down on a lady, Lamont says.
That ain’t nothing, Angel says. Once I saw this dog
get hit by a car. He went way up in the air and
when he came down again,
he got up and ran away. But he stopped at the corner,
Angel says.
And died.
    Â 
    Eric squints up his eyes.
Looks out over the school yard.
The sky’s real blue and no wind’s blowing.
I shake my head, trying to shake that dog out of it.
Once I saw a little boy, Eric says, all mysterious.
And then in my dream, he was a man.
    Â 
    We all look at him and don’t say nothing.
Far away, I hear some girls singing real slow and sad
Her mother, she went upstairs too.
Saying daughter oh daughter
what’s troubling you . . .
    Â 
    That ain’t no tragedy, Angel says, giving Eric a look.
    Â 

More than what Lonnie seen, Eric says, grinning at me.
    In my head I see a fire. I see black windows.
I hear people hollering. I smell smoke.
I hear a man’s voice saying I’m so sorry.
I hear myself screaming.
    Â 
    Never seen nothing, I say.

FAILING
    I got a 39 on my math test
’cause
I don’t understand numbers
’cause
you say 1 + 1 = 2 and I go why? You say just
’cause
like just ’cause somebody said it means it’s the truth.
And since I don’t believe the things people say is
always the truth
’cause
sometimes people lie
it’s hard to understand math.

NEW BOY
    New boy comes in our classroom today
Ms. Marcus says
Say good morning, Clyde, and the new boy says
Good mornin’, y’all
and the whole class falls out laughing
so hard, Ms. Marcus taps her pointer on the desk,
her face so mad it’s purple
R-e-s-p-e-c-t, she says
Respect! we repeat the way
she taught us to—a thousand times ago.
    Â 

New boy’s looking down at the floor
looks real sad, says I’m sorry, ma’am
and the class tries hard not to laugh
but some laugh spills out of us anyway.
You’ve nothing to be sorry about, Ms.