a few extra miles away.
SHARING THE LOAD
Carol lived closer now,
a short shot up Amsterdam,
twelve city blocks away,
but I didn’t see her much.
She was in no hurry
to share the same air
Mom breathed.
I almost squealed
when Sis turned up in Bed-Stuy
one weekend, while I
was visiting Daddy.
He was practicing his violin
as she tiptoed in,
his eyes closed, like always.
She lowered herself to the floor
beside me, and we both
listened for a while,
holding hands.
Then Carol, who dreamed
of being a singer like Della Reese,
started humming along
in her smooth contralto.
Daddy’s eyes flew open
at the sound of her voice.
“Come here, you!” he said,
giving Carol a one-armed hug,
before swinging his violin
back to the familiar
crook of his neck
and kiss of his chin.
Sis and I busied ourselves
in the kitchen
devouring my private stash
of lady finger grapes (my favorites!)
while scrounging enough
from Daddy’s cupboards and fridge
to manage sandwiches for lunch,
and teasing poor Daddy, who
couldn’t boil an egg.
When I was sure
he was out of earshot,
I told Carol about Clark
and that night.
She clenched her fists.
“That bastard!” she hissed,
hoping Daddy hadn’t heard the outburst.
She took me by the shoulders
and leaned in close, her eyes afire.
“Don’t. Ever. Tell. Daddy,”
she whispered.
“I won’t. Don’t worry,” I said.
“He’d find that bastard
and kill him,” said Carol,
which, by the way, we both agreed
was no more than Clark deserved.
Still, neither one of us wanted
to have to visit our father
in prison.
NEW DIGS
The new apartment we found
was two doors down from
the grandmother I had no use for.
Mom reminded me Grandma was
the only mother she had and asked
if I could please consider giving her
a second chance to love me.
I was not so inclined; however,
God kept pestering me about
this thing called forgiveness, which
seemed ten kinds of impossible.
I was still mad at her for leaving
Carol and me in foster care,
and mad at God for letting her.
Still, I did see Grandma
trying to make amends
with gifts and sweet treats.
I eventually got the drift.
Maybe it was time
to heal the rift.
DC-BOUND
Washington, DC
started calling
the minute Daddy said
we’d be driving there to see
Aunt Esther and Uncle Howard.
My overnight bag
bulged with jeans
and rumpled shirts
I could iron
once we got there.
I sat in the living room,
tapping my feet
till the phone rang.
“Sorry, honey,” Daddy said.
Great. Here it comes, I thought.
“Something’s come up.
We won’t be going, after all.”
I bit my lip,
ripped open my overnight bag
and spilled the contents
on the floor,
then stomped out the door.
Notebook
Facing exams on topics my last school was just getting into and my new school already finished. God! Might as well call me Catch-Up, since that’s my middle name.
YOU DON’T SAY
I quickly learned how little
I knew Grandma Mac—
her preferred moniker.
She came from poor stock down South,
sharecroppers, to be exact, and she’d
had to quit school early on to help
support the family. She’d hardly had time
to learn to read, but determined to
expand her knowledge on her own.
I can’t remember ever seeing her
without a book nearby. Next to
the lamp on her reading table, she kept
a Webster’s dictionary so she could
look up any unfamiliar words
and, though stubbornly proud
about most things, she saw no shame in it.
“Never be afraid to admit there’s something
you don’t know or understand,” she told me,
and I suspected she meant more than
the vocabulary she amassed like treasure.
I started dropping by Grandma’s for visits
and one-on-one conversations, and I’d
slip her a page or two from the years
that were lost between us, so she
could slowly read my story.
PINEAPPLE SURPRISE
After my grandmother
discovered my fondness
for pineapples,
this sweet knowledge became
a weapon she wielded
whenever she felt the need to
express her love and regret.
She’d go to considerable trouble
to bake a pineapple upside-down cake
from scratch, just for me,
then would gleefully watch
as I set aside my
adolescent aloofness
long enough to devour several
honey-soaked slices like
someone starving.
Sharing was not required,
unless I so chose.
Those sticky cakes never
quite made up for Grandma’s lack
of physical affection,
but my belly happily accepted
the substitute.
The Mystery of Memory #3
Think food,
and nourishment
comes to mind,
but we all know
it’s so much more.
One bite of baked pineapple,
and my tongue sticks
to the roof of memory,
gluing me to the last moment
I savored a slice of
pineapple upside-down cake
at my grandmother’s kitchen table.
Each tangy morsel
transports me,
and I am thirteen again,
relishing a culinary treat
sweet with the hours
it took Grandma to make
this Maraschino cherry–topped,
gooey offering of love.
NEW SCHOOL
They called it junior high,
those middle years
between childhood and
oh-God-I’m-practically-a-grown-up.
The school term had already started,
but th
at was nothing new.
Thanks to frequent changes of residence,
I had lots of experience
at midterm party-crashing.
I smiled a lot and acted like
I belonged while in class,
then snuck off to the library
to read my way through lunch,
sneaking bites of egg-salad sandwich
when no one was looking.
Surviving is almost easy
if you have a strategy
and a copy of
A Wrinkle in Time.
Notebook
My life is like musical chairs.
Every time the music plays, I have to move.
I wonder if I’ll ever get to stay in one place
longer than three or four years.
THE LANDSCAPE
Once again,
I ended up near water—
the Harlem River
barely a block away from school
made me think of the Hudson
till I chased the thought away.
No point hankering after good times
long gone.
I kept my nose in books,
dodged broken glass on sidewalks,
veered past winos holding up lampposts,
and avoided bullies as best I could,
not because I was afraid of them,
but because I half suspected
my slow-burning anger,
simmering beneath the surface,
made me more dangerous
than I wanted proof of.
ROAD TRIP
Daddy ruined me with frequent
road trips, mostly to DC
to see his older sister, Aunt Esther,
and her husband, Howard.
I don’t remember ever
staying for long,
but any ride with my Daddy
was a sweet adventure,
and the destination
was never
the point of it all.
APPLESAUCE
My father was
the baby of the family,
spoiled rotten by his sisters.
Aunt Edna, my favorite,
would often whip up
homemade applesauce
whenever we happened by,
teaching me
not all applesauce
is the same.
Her tongue-tickling,
tangy blend of
smooth and chunky apple yum,
was kissed with
just the right amount
of cinnamon and nutmeg
and an extra special
secret ingredient
Aunt Edna once whispered
when she was sure
I was sound asleep.
IN THE BACKGROUND
You’ll notice,
if you haven’t already,
I no longer talk
about my mother,
and anger
is not the reason.
I’ve little time for that.
Instead, I’ve entered
into the realm
of simple mistrust.
I’ve learned that Mom
is not to be counted on
for more than room and board.
Emotional support
is hardly on the table,
and any steadiness I might need,
I have to look for elsewhere.
Schizophrenics and alcoholics
are not known for their
reliability.
I’ve been tested, though,
and already know
on my own,
that I’m a survivor.
I can live on the hugs
of my father,
the smiles of my friends,
the boundless faith
of my sister,
and the dreams
God whispers
in my soul.
If Mom needs me, though,
I’m here.
ENGLISH CLASS
I was smart
and a smart-ass.
Truth be told,
you couldn’t tell me much.
Foul-mouthed kids
warned me
not to think I was “all that”
just because
I said ask instead of axe
and got great grades
in English.
I didn’t much care
what they thought,
as long as I got to write
book reports
and compositions,
or any other homework
that let me
lose myself in words.
Somehow, I knew writing
could take me places.
Even my teacher
told me so.
Still, there was no
getting around
one unfortunate fact:
writing was
a lonely business.
SIDESWIPED
Note to self: no more
writing in my notebook
while parked on the stoop.
One day, I made that mistake,
and the neighborhood number runner,
bored with taking bets, I suppose,
showed up out of nowhere,
interrupting me.
“Hey, girly. What you doing?”
he asked, as if
it wasn’t obvious.
I sighed and looked up.
“Writing,” I said,
expecting that to be
the end of it.
He rolled his toothpick
from one side of his mouth
to the other,
a gold incisor gleaming
when the sun slipped in.
“Writing, huh?
Writing what?”
If I tell him, I thought,
maybe he’ll go away.
“Poetry,” I said.
“Damn, girl!
Why you wasting your time
writing that?
Poetry ain’t gonna
get you nowhere.”
To keep the sharp blade
of my tongue
into fine strips,
I pressed my lips together,
barred my words
from escaping.
“What you gonna do
with ‘poetry’
when you grow up
and gotta pay the rent?”
I slammed my notebook shut
and stomped inside,
grinding my teeth
until my jaw throbbed
from the pressure.
I climbed the five flights,
muttering to myself,
“Some grown-ups
should damn well
wash their mouths out
with soap.”
CAROL’S MANTRA
My sister used to say,
“The world is going to hear
from the Grimes sisters,”
usually as a way
to punctuate
the latest
poem or story
I read to her
when we were
visiting Daddy.
“Yes, sir,” she’d say.
“The world is going to hear
from my baby.
You just watch.”
Her pronouncement
was a hope,
a prayer,
a promise,
a good word I could
tuck into the pocket
of my heart
to be reminded
of my potential
whenever the world
seemed bent
on convincing me
that I had
no such thing.
KINDRED SPIRIT
A girl named Jackie saved me.
We met in the school library,
two glasses-wearing geeks
who the other kids
called stuck-up.
Not much of a writer,
Jackie did match me book for book,
searching for a better future
than either of us saw
in the mirror
of our neighborhood.
That’s it, I decided.
From now on,
I’m only hanging with
other kids
who dream.
I believed in Jackie,
and she believed in me.
Funny how far
that can take you.
BULLY ON PATROL
A stout student
named Brenda
stalked me.
I never did figure out
what made her itch
for a throwdown.
Each day, she managed
to bump into me,
or poke me in the arm
accidentally on purpose.
Every infraction
was followed by
a cackle.
I’d bite my lip so hard,
it nearly bled.
“You really need to
leave me alone,”
I warned her,
again and again.
“Trust me,” I said,
“You don’t want
to make me mad.”
Of course,
I was already heated
when Brenda
turned my switch to boil.
Fists flew,
and they were mine,
and honestly,
I don’t remember much
except seeing red
and punching, punching,
punching Brenda in the face
until her usual smirk
ran sideways,
and she lay
sprawled across
the sidewalk,
her blood everywhere
and me trembling
atop her,
wondering
what the hell
just happened.