Miss Edna can’t visit her other son, so she prays.
I find her like that sometimes—on her knees in her
room with her hands
pressed together, her eyes closed.
Dear Lord, I heard her say once
Keep Jenkins safe and don’t let too many people die in this
war.
The war’s on the other side of the world.
But Jenkins is fighting in it.
And Miss Edna’s praying about it.
So I guess it’s the same as if it was right here
in our city
in our house
in Miss Edna’s room
Everywhere.
GEORGIA
Ever been south? We
used to go all the time. That’s
another poem.
NEW BOY POEM II
Cloudy out and just a little bit of rain spraying
across our faces, some kids got their coats
hanging from their heads. Some shivering but we all
in the school yard ’cause the lunchtime teacher
stuck her hand
out the door, frowned and said Okay, go on out, I guess
New boy’s across the yard talking
to a little girl look like him, she
got high-water pants on too
only hers are pink and she got brown shoes that look
about a hundred years old. Her hair in four
big braids like Lili likes to wear sometimes maybe
she’s Lili’s same age. New boy puts his arm
around her shoulders and they just stand there like
that looking out over the yard. Watching
them I feel something in the back of my throat
close up and choke at me. Then slide on
down to my stomach and make itself some tears.
TUESDAY
No rain but the sky
is this strange color—silver almost and the sun
white—like this white ball behind a piece
of silver foil. You could look
right at the sun and not go blind.
It’s watery like that.
Safe to look at today.
That’s what I’m thinking when Eric
comes up to where I’m sitting
in the school yard ’cause it’s lunchtime
The kind of day
when I don’t want
to do nothing
but go somewhere and write
Writing makes me remember.
It’s like my whole family comes back again
when I write. All of them right
here like somebody pushed the Rewind button
And that’s what I’m writing when Eric
comes up to where I am—in the far back
of the school yard
Writing and eating my grilled cheese sandwich I snuck
from the cafeteria. What you doing? Eric
wants to know. He’s wearing a leather jacket
like the kind I want to get one day—brown
with black sleeves
His own name across the whole front
E-R on one side
of the zipper
I-C on the other.
I close up my notebook. Say Nothing.
When I don’t want to be scared of Eric I think
about how he sings. Bird Eric. Angel Eric. Churchboy.
Don’t look like Nothing to me, Eric says.
His voice is hard. His eyes get real mean.
He calls me a punk and some other words I don’t
want to even write down.
I don’t know why he’s so evil some days
with his stupid angel voice
and mean-as-the-devil ways.
VISITING
They tell me and Lili we can sit in a room and talk—
catch up, the tall lady says and I ask
for how long and the tall lady says An hour then Lili’s
new mama says
An hour. That’s plenty of time.
I guess Lili’s new mama and the tall lady never had a
brother they didn’t live with no
more ’cause if they did they’d know an hour goes by
like three minutes or maybe even
faster than that.
Sometimes I go to Lili’s new mama’s house to visit.
I take the #52 bus and then I transfer for the #69 bus
and then
I get off and walk five blocks.
But sometimes Lili’s new mama don’t want me to
come there
and she don’t want to bring Lili to Miss Edna’s house
so we meet at the agency. Like today.
The agency’s a gray building. It’s ugly
It smells like Ajax. The floors got scuffs on them but
they shine. There’s only a couple windows though
and not a whole lot of light coming in.
I look at Lili a long time and for a long time
she looks right back at me. She’s
wearing a pink dress with flowers on it. She’s got pink
ribbons in her hair,
real pretty. My sister’s real pretty. She’s got little
dimples on her cheeks and her eyes
are big and round even when she’s not surprised.
They’re light brown too
like Mama’s.
Mama.
Some days I don’t think about her
and some days I do. Daddy too.
Not the fire though.
I shake my head when those thoughts come
Shake them out real fast.
I pull on the sleeves of my suit jacket. It’s brown
and getting too small but Miss Edna says you gotta
look presentable for Saturday visits so Miss Edna gave
me twenty dollars
for the girl across the street to braid my hair.
Before I left the group home, this boy named Andre
pierced my ear for me.
Miss Edna lets me wear the earring but on Saturdays I
take it out so
Lili’s new mama won’t look at me with that look that
says
You look like a bad boy to me.
Lili’s new mama didn’t want no boys
Just a sweet little girl. Nobody told me that
I just know it.
Not a lot of people want boys
Not foster boys
that ain’t babies.
Miss Edna took me ’cause
she already raised two sons. Said she knew what to do
if I didn’t act right. Said she knew more about boys
than she did
about girls. The first day I heard
her ask the tall lady
He ever been arrested?
And the tall lady said
Uh-uh. Not Lonnie. He’s quiet. Good.
Quiet is good
It’s hard to be quiet all the time though.
And sometimes Miss Edna gets to yelling at me.
And that yelling ain’t quiet either.
You found God yet, Lonnie? Lili says.
She’s got on little white gloves.
One of her hands is holding a Bible.
I wasn’t looking for Him, I say back.
Then I smile so that Lili knows I’m just goofing.
But she don’t
smile back at me. Instead, she looks real serious.
God is everywhere, she says. He comes in your heart if
you let Him.
She sounds real grown-up. Like she’s twenty-five
instead of eight.
But then her eyes get all watery.
You find God, Lonnie, she says, then maybe me and you
can be together again.
Maybe a real big brother would tell her it’d take a lot
more than that.
Tell her that her new mama’s never gonna take me in
and some days I can’t imagine living anyplace else but
in Miss Edna’s house.
Some days I look around my room and say,
Locomotion, stop thinking about moving on ’cause
this is home.
But
My eyes just get all watery too and I wipe them
real fast. Then I turn toward the one
little window in our room so that Lili won’t
see more tears already starting to come down.
Yeah, Lili, I say. I’m gonna go looking for Him, okay?
Then Lili gives me her Bible and kisses me on the cheek.
She has a big smile on her face. You’re the best brother, she says
the best brother in the whole world. In the whole galaxy.
I look down at the Bible and let myself start grinning.
That Lili’s something else.
JUST NOTHING POEM
Sometimes Ms. Marcus makes me sick!
Now everybody’s head’s bent over their notebooks.
This girl LaTenya that I like a little bit
got her tongue sticking outa
the side of her mouth like she’s really concentrating.
Like she knows just what to write.
Even Lamont and Eric writing all serious like
they know exactly what they’re doing.
Me? I’m slouching
waiting for that stupid teacher to say
“Sit up straight, Lonnie.”
Me? I’m slouching down and staring
out at the rain, city
so gray you’d think we live inside a big old gray box.
Clouds hanging so low they look
like aluminum foil
Reynolds Wrap sky.
Me? I’m waiting for her to say
“Stop daydreaming, Lonnie.”
I want to yell today.
Get real mad at somebody.
I want to punch something. Hard.
Maybe punch somebody.
Me? I want to yell
What family?!
It’s thundering now. Lightning too.
When the thunder comes hard, everybody jumps.
Then some people laugh.
Me? I don’t jump or laugh
like a stupid person. Thunder don’t scare me none.
Me? I’m just sitting here with nothing
to say wishing Ms. Marcus would vaporize
like the people do on Star Trek.
Lonnie, she says. Are you writing about your family
or just daydreaming?
Me? I ain’t got nothing to say today.
Just feel like sitting here
Watching the rain come down
and down
and
down.
GOD POEM
There’s some glass on Miss Edna’s roof
You gotta make sure you don’t sit on it in the dark.
It’s from people roofing bottles
You finish your soda or whatever and
you throw your bottle on a roof
Sometimes people miss.
Once this bottle came speeding back down and broke
in a million pieces
This boy Isaiah had to go to the hospital
’cause glass went in his eye.
And nosy old Miss Portia who lives across
the street kept saying
See? See? I told y’all somebody was
gonna get hurt one of these days.
Some of this glass is probably mine.
If I get cut on the butt it’s my own fault.
But I come up here anyway.
Even when it’s cold like tonight.
I just got to zip my jacket way up
and pull my hat way down
then I’m all right.
There’s a fat moon and enough stars to read Lili’s
Bible by
I don’t understand a lot of the words
and I’m waiting for God to show Himself to me
Not for me so much—for Lili.
Yeah, I guess, for me too.
ALL OF A SUDDEN, THE POEM
Today Angel said he was writing a book
of poems called All of a Sudden, The Sun
Ms. Marcus’s smile got so big
you could see her back teeth.
Angel got all show-offy then, saying
every poem is gonna be about
how sometimes the sun just comes out when you don’t
expect it to—like when
it’s raining and stuff. And Ms. Marcus
just kept smiling and shaking her head and saying
Wonderful, brilliant, excellent, good for you, Angel until
other kids caught on to all the smiling she was doing
just for Angel and started talking
about books they were gonna write like
All of a Sudden, The Moon and
All of a Sudden, The School and
All of a Sudden, The Pepsi Cola Can until
the titles got so stupid, Ms. Marcus stopped
smiling, told us poetry was over
for the day. Said it was time
for math.
And I didn’t even care because
Angel’s idea wasn’t the best idea
I ever heard in the world even if
Ms. Marcus thought so.
She don’t know everything anyway.
Probably wouldn’t know a good poet if . . .
If . . .
If nothing.
Some days I hate poetry.
The way the good ideas be going
to somebody else.
HEY DOG
Hey Dog!
That’s how you call your boys.
Hey Dog. You want to hoop?
Then you and your dogs are throwing
the ball around and talking about
girls and ballplayers and stuff
you’re gonna have one day
A red car
some slamming kicks
a shearling coat
a pocket full of money
a pretty girl
a satellite dish and cable
on and on you and your dogs
two college degrees, straight A straight up
a phat deal with the Lakers
no, the Knicks
no, the Nets
Nah—the Nets ain’t nothing.
What you talking about, Dog? The Nets got game.
Yeah, a game of checkers!!
Game of tag, maybe.
Game of pin the tail on the donkey!
Just grinning and talking junk
shooting hoops
not even knowing where
or when people started calling the people
they like to be around Dog
but liking it and feeling good when
your dog slaps your hand, gives you a quick hug, says
What’s up, Dog?
OCCASIONAL POEM
Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem
written about something
important
or special
that’s gonna happen
or already did.
Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.
Like what?! Lamont asks.
He’s all slouched down in his seat.
I don’t feel like writing about no occasion.
How about your birthday? Ms. Marcus says.
What about it? Just a birthday. Comes in June and it ain’t
June, Lamont says. As a matter of fact,
he says, it’s January and it’s snowing.
Then his voice gets real low and he says
And when it’s January and all cold like this
feels like June’s a long, long ways away.
The whole class looks at Ms. Marcus.
Some of the kids are nodding.
Outside the sky looks like it’s made out of metal
and
the cold, cold air is rattling the windowpanes
and coming underneath them too.
I seen Lamont’s coat.
It’s gray and the sleeves are too short.
It’s down but it looks like a lot of the feathers fell out
a long time ago.
Ms. Marcus got a nice coat.
It’s down too but real puffy so
maybe when she’s inside it
she can’t even tell January from June.
Then write about January, Ms. Marcus says, that’s
an occasion.
But she looks a little bit sad when she says it
Like she’s sorry she ever brought the whole
occasional poem thing up.
I was gonna write about Mama’s funeral
but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth
zapped all the ideas from my head.
I guess them arguing
on a Tuesday in January’s an occasion
So I guess this is an occasional poem.
HAIKU POEM
Ms. Marcus wants to
see all my poems. No way.
Some things just your own.
LATENYA
It’s lunchtime.
I just ate a cheeseburger with french fries and some
applesauce
which means today’s a good lunch day ’cause
sometimes they put stuff on your tray and you don’t
know what
it is but you eat it anyway ’cause
Mr. Hungry don’t care.
I’m shooting hoops by myself, liking the way the ball
sounds
Swish
when it goes through the basket without touching
the rim
and I’m by myself too ’cause both Eric and Lamont
are absent.
It’s Friday.