(no subject)
There are things that I do not want to forget:
Sonic and Starbursts in the front seat of Ms. Alma's red cadillac after school, going over spelling words while we waited for my sister to get out of middle school. Two weeks in Baton Rouge circling garage sales in the newspaper, buying habanero peppers at Albertson and cooking them for Mr. Don. Explaining to a grown man, at ten years old, why black children shouldn't be called "pickaninnies" like I was teaching a class. His old rodeo pictures. Watching the adult channels with their grandson Brian, with righteous outrage, afraid of everything. Years later, at their house off pear orchard drive, visiting Don on his deathbed, right before the cigarettes and the skole took his jaw. I'll forgive a dead man anything.
Trilliums on the roadside, going deeper into the dark forests of northern Michigan with my highschool poetry cohort. Emerging at the Sleeping Beer Dunes, caught up in fog. Running down the seaside, getting my foot caught, falling and not caring. Slipping flat black stones into my wet pockets. Guiding Bri down the stairs of upper McWhorter. Meeting Lauren at the writer's house right before her suspension. Walking down the long aisle -- what was it called?-- with Kea right before hers. God, if I hadn't been so well behaved... would anything really be different at all?
Mississippi summers, interning at the Jackson Free Press. Running over a dog in my Ford Explorer while running errands with Swetha, Jessica and Casey and blaring Tiffany on audio cassette. Having the dog be okay somehow, miraculously. Pub quiz with the Lesbians at Hal & Mals, tramping around town. The JFP New Years party and the worst backseat one night stand I'll ever have. New Orleans New Year in the Maronie with Jessica and Swey, getting so drunk I couldn't drive home the next day.
New York, everything, I don't know. I'm not a poet any more. I just want to record a few things. It's a start.
Sonic and Starbursts in the front seat of Ms. Alma's red cadillac after school, going over spelling words while we waited for my sister to get out of middle school. Two weeks in Baton Rouge circling garage sales in the newspaper, buying habanero peppers at Albertson and cooking them for Mr. Don. Explaining to a grown man, at ten years old, why black children shouldn't be called "pickaninnies" like I was teaching a class. His old rodeo pictures. Watching the adult channels with their grandson Brian, with righteous outrage, afraid of everything. Years later, at their house off pear orchard drive, visiting Don on his deathbed, right before the cigarettes and the skole took his jaw. I'll forgive a dead man anything.
Trilliums on the roadside, going deeper into the dark forests of northern Michigan with my highschool poetry cohort. Emerging at the Sleeping Beer Dunes, caught up in fog. Running down the seaside, getting my foot caught, falling and not caring. Slipping flat black stones into my wet pockets. Guiding Bri down the stairs of upper McWhorter. Meeting Lauren at the writer's house right before her suspension. Walking down the long aisle -- what was it called?-- with Kea right before hers. God, if I hadn't been so well behaved... would anything really be different at all?
Mississippi summers, interning at the Jackson Free Press. Running over a dog in my Ford Explorer while running errands with Swetha, Jessica and Casey and blaring Tiffany on audio cassette. Having the dog be okay somehow, miraculously. Pub quiz with the Lesbians at Hal & Mals, tramping around town. The JFP New Years party and the worst backseat one night stand I'll ever have. New Orleans New Year in the Maronie with Jessica and Swey, getting so drunk I couldn't drive home the next day.
New York, everything, I don't know. I'm not a poet any more. I just want to record a few things. It's a start.