Street Love (2 page)

My head is filled with images as I stumble,

Heavy-footed through this endless day.

Terrible images of my mother’s face

Twisted in disbelief, her body trembling

As the realization that her life was finished

Washed over her.

Her mouth was open but all that I could

Hear was the wailing of her soul

As they hustled her from the chaos of the courtroom

Into the chaos of the foreverness

That was to be her punishment.

Guilty of possession and distribution

Twenty-five years to life

How could they know she had never possessed

Anything worth the while

Had never distributed anything except pieces of herself

Which she gave freely

To those in need, or to those who, like

Her, were broken, and needed a fix?

She possessed nothing as they led

Her, handcuffed, away

What she left behind

Forlorn and weeping in the second row of benches

Were not her children,

Lost and desperate in the whirlwind

My head is filled with images

Of Melissa and me on the court steps

She crying and clinging to my skirt

Me crying and clinging to a distant God

As we made our way to the bus terminal

For the long journey home.

My head is filled with images

That mare at night and tear at my flesh

There is no rational corner in my head

Beyond making tea for Melissa

Beyond making conversation with Miss Ruby

Nothing to make my legs move in the

Direction of our apartment as if there

Were sense to moving

If anyone could look into my head

See or feel the dread that has captured

Me or see within this sad, unhappy brain

They would only turn away

Turn away.

Mommy seemed a hundred miles away

In the yellow-light

Courtroom

With all of the people standing at the tables

And Mommy was smaller

Than they were

Even though everybody says

She is so tall

The judge pushed his glasses

Up on his nose when he was talking

But Mommy just looked

Down

When the judge said how

Long Mommy would be in jail

A terrible sound came out of

Junice

A hurt sound

A
Uhhh!
sound

Her body jerked forward

I was so scared

So scared

People were shuffling papers

They
swished
as people

Stood and their feet

Cluffed
across the floor

Mommy turned

Her eyes were dark and

Wild as if she were

Seeing a monster coming

I turned to see what Mommy saw

But all I saw was the people leaving

Through the big doors in the back

When I turned back to Mommy

There was just a little piece of her left

Between the big policemen

My skin was crawling

And my arms were shaking

Miss Ruby called out in the courtroom

She said “Be strong, daughter!”

Junice said I was crying.

I don’t remember crying but afterward

Afterward

My throat was sore

Yeah, it’s hard, baby

It’s hard right down to the bone

I said Oh, it’s hard baby

It’s hard right down to the very bone

It’s hard when you’re a woman

And you find yourself all alone

I’ve been flapping and scrapping

And running from door to door

You know I’ve been flapping and scrapping, honey

Running from door to door

I ain’t what I used to be, ain’t really Miss Ruby anymore

Oh, daughter, daughter, daughter,

Why you chasing White Girl dreams?

Yes, oh, daughter, daughter,

Why you chasing White Girl dreams?

Them rainbows you were finding,

Ain’t really what they seems to be.

I told Junice to get herself on up

We ain’t no trifling women

I been knocked down and flung around

“Junice, why you looking so sad, baby?

You got your Miss Ruby here, ain’t you?

You and Lissa gonna be all right.

Miss Ruby’s been scruffed and roughed

In her day but she don’t lay down.

No sir. You mama will be home ’fore

You know it.”

“She got twenty-five years, Miss Ruby.”

“We Ambers women. We been down and we

Been up. We don’t tip and run. No, we sure

Don’t. I had your mama on a cold day

In December, thirty-some—how old is Leslie?

Never mind, you ask her when she come Home.”

“She got twenty-five years, Miss Ruby.”

“When she come home we got to sit

Down and have a family talk. My

Aunt Louise used to say that once in

A while you had to have a family talk

Get into the Bible. You know Louise was

Always into the Old Testament. Your

Mama come home I’m going to tell her

About the Old Testament. Genesis, and

All that. We ain’t had a family talk for

A while, but when she come home

We need to have us one. Get into the

Bible, and all that.”

“She got twenty-five years, Miss Ruby.”

We drone along the faceless highway

That is the history of my life

Telephone poles, light poles, pretending

Differences, pretending they are not the

Thousand pages etched of who I am

Each episode was written by somebody

With my dark face, my broad back,

Mama, Miss Ruby, how far back do we go?

Did some Bantu gap-toothed woman

Rise one bright morning

And march willingly to the shore?

To the waiting ships?

We are on the Thruway

Miss Ruby, her mind slipping in and out

Of Knowing, chatters on while Melissa,

My sweet Melissa who already

Knows how to weep without

Tears, leans against the hard window

Passing neon lights play across

Her pretty face, her sadness

The trial is over, the sentence read There are no comforts to share

No songs to ease our sorrow

Only the long bus ride home

What are they doing to me? To me?

Groping and groping, reaching to see

If I have hidden my soul somewhere

Between my legs, not seeing it puddle

On the cracked grout floor

Of this steel tomb

They are calling this my forever home

“Hide your body along the green-gray

Walls,” they say

“So we cannot see your crime-ugly face.”

But I know they see everything

They want me not to see myself

But I must, I am desperate to see

My image, my wild eyes searching

For the high of being me again

Of being Leslie, of evoking

Ambers

On the streets of the city

They have taken my Who-I-Am

As well as my What-I-Was

And now I am desperate for them both

Again

“Hey, Princess 649178,

Time to Bend and Grin!”

“Why she think she a princess?”

“Hey, Princess, you got any children?”

“I have two daughters

The oldest is named Junice.”

“Shut up! We don’t care about your dumb family!”

“But you asked—”

“Yeah, but we don’t care.

And neither do you, or you wouldn’t be in here!”

Where is my daughter? Where is Junice?

Why doesn’t she come flying through the walls

Screaming in rage and fury because of

What they are doing to me, to me.

Why doesn’t she break this darkness into

A thousand crumbling fragments

And lift me over the razor wire cliffs

Of my despair?

Where is Miss Ruby, my mother,

With her roots and spells

Where are the black candles

That spell death to my enemies?

Perhaps they are on their way

Perhaps they are at the gates

“Shut up! We don’t care about your dumb family!”

“But you asked—”

“Yeah, but we don’t care.

And neither do you, or you wouldn’t be in here!”

I care, I have always cared

Really.

There was a time

When I thought of my life as a journey

Knowing somewhere there would be a place

At which I would Arrive and be

Beautiful

On clear days, if I shielded my eyes

Just right and squinted into the distance

I could almost see the station’s sign

Bold and shining on a summer-green hill

But none of that was true

There were no tracks climbing

Like a silver arrow toward a place called

Future. No friendly tower or friendly faces

Eager for my appearance

No, it is all cycle and recycle

What the great-grandmother has done

Is to rut the earth for her children

What the grandmother has done

Is to widen the furrow for her children

What the mother has done

Is to square the pit

Deepening it for the ritual to come

And here I sit, grave deep among the

Waiting worms, staking my claim

As they stake theirs.

What do I want, you ask

What do I whisper to God

In the early mornings?

Only to keep Melissa safe

To hold her close

Away from the past, away from

The expectation in your eyes

Is this too much to ask?

The bench in the office is four feet wide

So when she was there, elbows on her knees

There should have been enough room

Except for someone else’s green backpack

Against the slatted side

Which barely left enough room

For me to sit, but I did

She looked up at me, and I smiled

She looked away

Fran leaning across the ledgers on the counter

Commented on my admission to Brown

“Your mother must be very proud.”

I hear her sigh. Then she was called into

The inner sanctum

I could hear snatches of conversations

Words piled on her.

Must. Responsibility. Days missed from school.

She came out and sat down again

Elbows on knees.

Not noticing our hips touching

Or the current between us

“You want to stop for coffee?” I asked, surprising myself

I anchored myself on the bench

Waiting to be called into the office

The office clerks chirped Damien’s name

Wonderful this, amazing that

The other side of the universe

He came in and sat next to me

Touching me, his legs stretched out

The Lord, waiting for his homage

Me in the office, hearing the words

Wond’ring if most of the world was like me

Listening to the judgments of others

The warnings, the I-Told-You-Sos

The sentences.

On the bench again, waiting for the written

Notification. He speaks.

“Coffee?” He says. “Why?” I ask. He shrugs, our hips are touching

I’m not your kind, I think.

“Some other time?” I say.

“Fine,” He says. I search for words that seem

Softer. “The bench is small,”

I say. “That’s all right,” He says quickly,

His shy smile illuminating the answer.

“Can I call you?” He asks.

“Why?” I ask.

Kev, there’s Junice, I spoke to her yesterday

She strikes me as…

You hit on her?

No, man, we exchanged a few words, and…

And you laid out your line

I’m seeing her differently, you know

She’s sweet, neat, and filet mignon

The best kind of meat

No, what I feel is that

Somehow she’s more real than

I’m used to being around

It’s as if I found something within me.

You’re tripping, bro. She’s a slick chick

I got to admit. She’s as strong as she’s

Long but I don’t get the sudden vision

This heated rush that raises one dark

Flower, lovely as it is, above the

Bush.

Kevin, things are happening around me, man

Things that you expected

Right, and that I’ve never rejected

Things that happen according to a plan

And maybe that’s what makes Junice shine

What makes her seem suddenly fantastic

Why in a garden that for all the world seemed mine

She is the only rose that doesn’t smell of plastic

Look, there, see how she turns, how she touches

Her hair. How she gestures as if writing

Her name in the air.

Ah, new, strange, yes, I see.

A little slip and slide when

Roxanne is not around

A little grip and glide with

Someone new. I’m hip. If you had slipped

Me the 411 from the get-go

Then I wouldn’t have thought you

Were losing it.

Kevin, you’re never going to change

That girl is doing things in my chest

That make my heart happy and

I think that feeling in my stomach is my

Liver laughing to be alive again

If the feeling goes lower

You got my vote. But she’s coming

This way. Now she sees us. She’s smiling

She’s yours, man. Rap her up and

Take her home if you want, but since

I got your back, let me stack some wisdom on

You. Give Junice some serious slack

Or give your mama a heart attack. And

That’s a fact, Jack!