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cat and mouse |
i once made coffee drinks on a philly tributary vein road i lived on the side street with the neighborhood blacks rented out a room across from the baptist church, with its sunday morning glory gospel holy spirit mary joseph jesus wailings my neighbors would calmly file into the ancient wooden double doors, shut the ancient wooden double doors, and in an hour or so emerge in a holy excitement chatter and children and barbeque the cop cars live on this block the other streets are white so those ones just have meter maids. where i was raised, white kids snorted coke out of their history books in the cafeteria with no consequence. where i live now the black man gets his fix, some freedom from the fire, and the cops sit in their cars and wait nightly patrols, raids, busts, cat and mouse life in a cage for some weed or crack, possession i sleep through it all with a shot of rum and a spinning record and the rocking chair women, gossiping, wave, while i make my morning march through the maze black to white white to black my entire first month was spent powerless (no electricity) in a black neighborhood as a white girl with a candle and a shadow like a ghost |