Street Love Read Free

path with prose
    And expects me to skip from verb to noun
    Making garlands of his wit
    How dare he hi-yo-Silver me when I am so
    Needy, my palms turned up in begging
    Lágrimas de luna por favor
    The onions are perfect. Melissa
    Will want to keep one on the kitchen
    Table. A nine-year-old romantic
    Wanting to be an Old Master
    What can Damien want of me?
    Once he smells the sulfur pouring
    From my life he will run
    When he reaches for my hands
    And finds them wringing in hopelessness
    He will shrink away. What does he know
    Of my lips, twisted in cursing and defiance
    What does he know of my body
    Bent double with the weight of my days?
    Won’t he cringe and move away? Isn’t that what
    Men do to girls like me?
    Cheese wrapped in plastic, colorless Wicca cheese
    But good enough on leftover beef with
    Fried onions and Goya sauce
    Thinking he is a man, he invites me
    To coffee. Thinking he is a moment away from the
    Rage I have become, I will go
    Too soon, or reach too greedily into
    Promises neither of us can fulfill
    Rolls, I must have rolls
    The soft kind that Miss Ruby can manage
    Damien appears sweet, as boys go, and offers
    An untested heart. He needs a girl
    Who thinks of love as June pleasant days
    Or shopping
    With nothing lost that cannot be replaced
    But I am not that girl. I am Street
    My needs are fierce. I am hungry
    And my teeth are sharp. Where will he
    Find the strength to hold me?
    What can he bring to the vacant lot
    Of my horizons
    And whatever he brings
    Will it be street enough to keep us safe
    Against the storm?
    Could it even withstand the voltage of
    His mother’s shock?

MELISSA’S DREAM
    I was in the living room
    Everyone thought my red dress
    The one with the neat silk stitches
    Was blue and Miss Ruby touched it
    With her long fingers and sharp nails
    And said I shouldn’t wear locs because my hair
    Wasn’t strong enough to wear them
    But I wasn’t wearing locs, my hair was up
    The way Junice had put it and so I put my
    Head against her chest and
    Listened to her heart
    Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump! And I wasn’t as scared
    Anymore and then some other people were walking
    Around the room, only now the brown and purple
    Rug was a wooden floor that sounded shlud-shlud
    As people walked and everyone said not to mind
    Because I looked so pretty in my blue-green dress
    Only Junice knew I was wearing a red dress
    Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Again and again and again

The MOTHERS
    ERNESTINE BATTLE
    Damien is different, a tender
    Boy with a heart too forgiving for its own dear sake
    Uneasy with the higher way that for him
    Is as natural as rain in spring
    Not that he pretends to royalty or
    Misunderstands his birth although that
    Birth should not be denied, my side at least
    Has made its mark in three eastern cities
    And has been in Who’s Who several times
    Not that any of that matters because
    It is my son’s bright future that concerns
    Me. I don’t want it lost in the slanting
    Chasm of this busy concrete forest
    With its neon snares and jazzy traps
    No, my son has a greater role to
    Play than is offered on this
    Meager stage.
    LESLIE AMBERS
    Junice favors me. Something about the mouth
    The way she stands to her full height
    The arch of her back. The length of those brown
    Thighs that men capture in their minds long
    Before they glimpse the reality of her womanhood
    But she is naïve. Wearing her childhood around
    Her neck like a laurel. At her age I had already lost
    One child and she was on the way. Some would say
    She’s spoiled but I know she just hasn’t
    Found the fight in her as yet. We are scufflers
    We in the Ambers clan.
    We don’t let each other down. She
    Will fight by my side as I fought at Miss
    Ruby’s side. She knows what family means
    And it’s that meaning that concerns me.
    No, there is more to her than
    These walls, these cells, can stand against.
    ERNESTINE
    It is not the petty hustlers
    Who worry me. He’ll handle them
    It’s the unsuspected ones. Bright
    And so