Fridays are made for posting

It's Friday. I was busy this week. The world went by and missed many things.

Sometimes when I write I'm someone else. Sometimes a different sex, sometimes a different colour, sometimes a different species. Sometimes I'm just me.


Brothers on Lennox

Jazz ­─
smells of fresh-brewed tar
amid the sirens
after the thirty-fifth gunshot heard
by never-virgin ears (baby, I wish for
you a better home); shutters only
shut out white light truths.
Sweat peels off my black skin, around
the comer of a black past saving,
even Louis finds a fly a crunchy
meal (too hot for squab this week).
The hand-me-down trails ends here. Mama
wishes for a new bonnet for Julie
instead of beans and franks. An empty pot,
filled with yesterday's invisible desires,
beckons a cook holding tomorrow's
breakfast,
lunch and
dinner
in the palm of her
delicate, but deternined
hand.

Colour­ ─
holds the package for the man
with two gold teeth
and a Tweety and Sylvester lie
(pass the brown bag on its way, my brother)
until he seems amused by
only twenty youths in
toques, not scarves, surrounding
ibis week's prize ─ Call the fuzz,
regret the dime ─ Pay for another
can ofbeer for Mama instead. Julie's
bonnet covers up the blood (three
shots back) and reassures those
checking up from social services.

A home (four walls,
a ceiling and a floor)
refuses shelter, though
as poor, the rights are
filled.

[©1999]