Street Love

  Don’t. I had your mama on a cold day

  In December, thirty-some—how old is Leslie?

  Never mind, you ask her when she come Home.”

  “She got twenty-five years, Miss Ruby.”

  “When she come home we got to sit

  Down and have a family talk. My

  Aunt Louise used to say that once in

  A while you had to have a family talk

  Get into the Bible. You know Louise was

  Always into the Old Testament. Your

  Mama come home I’m going to tell her

  About the Old Testament. Genesis, and

  All that. We ain’t had a family talk for

  A while, but when she come home

  We need to have us one. Get into the

  Bible, and all that.”

  “She got twenty-five years, Miss Ruby.”

  JUNICE AMBERS looking from the WINDOW of the BUS

  We drone along the faceless highway

  That is the history of my life

  Telephone poles, light poles, pretending

  Differences, pretending they are not the

  Thousand pages etched of who I am

  Each episode was written by somebody

  With my dark face, my broad back,

  Mama, Miss Ruby, how far back do we go?

  Did some Bantu gap-toothed woman

  Rise one bright morning

  And march willingly to the shore?

  To the waiting ships?

  We are on the Thruway

  Miss Ruby, her mind slipping in and out

  Of Knowing, chatters on while Melissa,

  My sweet Melissa who already

  Knows how to weep without

  Tears, leans against the hard window

  Passing neon lights play across

  Her pretty face, her sadness

  The trial is over, the sentence read There are no comforts to share

  No songs to ease our sorrow

  Only the long bus ride home

  LESLIE AMBERS in BEDFORD HILLS PRISON

  What are they doing to me? To me?

  Groping and groping, reaching to see

  If I have hidden my soul somewhere

  Between my legs, not seeing it puddle

  On the cracked grout floor

  Of this steel tomb

  They are calling this my forever home

  “Hide your body along the green-gray

  Walls,” they say

  “So we cannot see your crime-ugly face.”

  But I know they see everything

  They want me not to see myself

  But I must, I am desperate to see

  My image, my wild eyes searching

  For the high of being me again

  Of being Leslie, of evoking

  Ambers

  On the streets of the city

  They have taken my Who-I-Am

  As well as my What-I-Was

  And now I am desperate for them both

  Again

  “Hey, Princess 649178,

  Time to Bend and Grin!”

  “Why she think she a princess?”

  “Hey, Princess, you got any children?”

  “I have two daughters

  The oldest is named Junice.”

  “Shut up! We don’t care about your dumb family!”

  “But you asked—”

  “Yeah, but we don’t care.

  And neither do you, or you wouldn’t be in here!”

  Where is my daughter? Where is Junice?

  Why doesn’t she come flying through the walls

  Screaming in rage and fury because of

  What they are doing to me, to me.

  Why doesn’t she break this darkness into

  A thousand crumbling fragments

  And lift me over the razor wire cliffs

  Of my despair?

  Where is Miss Ruby, my mother,

  With her roots and spells

  Where are the black candles

  That spell death to my enemies?

  Perhaps they are on their way

  Perhaps they are at the gates

  “Shut up! We don’t care about your dumb family!”

  “But you asked—”

  “Yeah, but we don’t care.

  And neither do you, or you wouldn’t be in here!”

  I care, I have always cared

  Really.

  JUNICE tells her STORY at the FAMILY WELFARE BUREAU

  There was a time

  When I thought of my life as a journey

  Knowing somewhere there would be a place

  At which I would Arrive and be

  Beautiful

  On clear days, if I shielded my eyes

  Just right and squinted into the distance

  I could almost see the station’s sign

  Bold and shining on a summer-green hill

  But none of that was true

  There were no tracks climbing

  Like a silver arrow toward a place called

  Future. No friendly tower or friendly faces

  Eager for my appearance

  No, it is all cycle and recycle

  What the great-grandmother has done

  Is to rut the earth for her children

  What the grandmother has done

  Is to widen the furrow for her children

  What the mother has done

  Is to square the pit

  Deepening it for the ritual to come

  And here I sit, grave deep among the

  Waiting worms, staking my claim

  As they stake theirs.

  What do I want, you ask

  What do I whisper to God

  In the early mornings?

  Only to keep Melissa safe

  To hold her close

  Away from the past, away from

  The expectation in your eyes

  Is this too much to ask?

  DAMIEN on a BENCH in the SCHOOL OFFICE

  The bench in the office is four feet wide

  So when she was there, elbows on her knees

  There should have been enough room

  Except for someone else’s green backpack

  Against the slatted side

  Which barely left enough room

  For me to sit, but I did

  She looked up at me, and I smiled

  She looked away

  Fran leaning across the ledgers on the counter

  Commented on my admission to Brown

  “Your mother must be very proud.”

  I hear her sigh. Then she was called into

  The inner sanctum

  I could hear snatches of conversations

  Words piled on her.

  Must. Responsibility. Days missed from school.

  She came out and sat down again

  Elbows on knees.

  Not noticing our hips touching

  Or the current between us

  “You want to stop for coffee?” I asked, surprising myself

  JUNICE on a BENCH in the SCHOOL OFFICE

  I anchored myself on the bench

  Waiting to be called into the office

  The office clerks chirped Damien’s name

  Wonderful this, amazing that

  The other side of the universe

  He came in and sat next to me

  Touching me, his legs stretched out

  The Lord, waiting for his homage

  Me in the office, hearing the words

  Wond’ring if most of the world was like me

  Listening to the judgments of others

  The warnings, the I-Told-You-Sos

  The sentences.

  On the bench again, waiting for the written

  Notification. He speaks.

  “Coffee?” He says. “Why?” I ask. He shrugs, our hips are touching

  I’m not your kind, I think.

  “Some other time?” I say.

  “Fine,” He says. I search for words that
seem

  Softer. “The bench is small,”

  I say. “That’s all right,” He says quickly,

  His shy smile illuminating the answer.

  “Can I call you?” He asks.

  “Why?” I ask.

  DAMIEN and KEVIN and JUNICE in the SUPERMARKET

  Kev, there’s Junice, I spoke to her yesterday

  She strikes me as…

  You hit on her?

  No, man, we exchanged a few words, and…

  And you laid out your line

  I’m seeing her differently, you know

  She’s sweet, neat, and filet mignon

  The best kind of meat

  No, what I feel is that

  Somehow she’s more real than

  I’m used to being around

  It’s as if I found something within me.

  You’re tripping, bro. She’s a slick chick

  I got to admit. She’s as strong as she’s

  Long but I don’t get the sudden vision

  This heated rush that raises one dark

  Flower, lovely as it is, above the

  Bush.

  Kevin, things are happening around me, man

  Things that you expected

  Right, and that I’ve never rejected

  Things that happen according to a plan

  And maybe that’s what makes Junice shine

  What makes her seem suddenly fantastic

  Why in a garden that for all the world seemed mine

  She is the only rose that doesn’t smell of plastic

  Look, there, see how she turns, how she touches

  Her hair. How she gestures as if writing

  Her name in the air.

  Ah, new, strange, yes, I see.

  A little slip and slide when

  Roxanne is not around

  A little grip and glide with

  Someone new. I’m hip. If you had slipped

  Me the 411 from the get-go

  Then I wouldn’t have thought you

  Were losing it.

  Kevin, you’re never going to change

  That girl is doing things in my chest

  That make my heart happy and

  I think that feeling in my stomach is my

  Liver laughing to be alive again

  If the feeling goes lower

  You got my vote. But she’s coming

  This way. Now she sees us. She’s smiling

  She’s yours, man. Rap her up and

  Take her home if you want, but since

  I got your back, let me stack some wisdom on

  You. Give Junice some serious slack

  Or give your mama a heart attack. And

  That’s a fact, Jack!

  JUNICE in the SUPERMARKET

  Melissa wants spaghetti

  Miss Ruby wants chicken

  But won’t remember what she asked for

  We have some beef left over and enough

  On the card for onions, cheese, and rolls,

  I’ll make sandwiches

  And not think of Damien

  Who is he? High horsing into my life

  And me teetering on the rim of the

  Volcano, choking on its fumes

  He strews his path with prose

  And expects me to skip from verb to noun

  Making garlands of his wit

  How dare he hi-yo-Silver me when I am so

  Needy, my palms turned up in begging

  Lágrimas de luna por favor

  The onions are perfect. Melissa

  Will want to keep one on the kitchen

  Table. A nine-year-old romantic

  Wanting to be an Old Master

  What can Damien want of me?

  Once he smells the sulfur pouring

  From my life he will run

  When he reaches for my hands

  And finds them wringing in hopelessness

  He will shrink away. What does he know

  Of my lips, twisted in cursing and defiance

  What does he know of my body

  Bent double with the weight of my days?

  Won’t he cringe and move away? Isn’t that what

  Men do to girls like me?

  Cheese wrapped in plastic, colorless Wicca cheese

  But good enough on leftover beef with

  Fried onions and Goya sauce

  Thinking he is a man, he invites me

  To coffee. Thinking he is a moment away from the

  Rage I have become, I will go

  Too soon, or reach too greedily into

  Promises neither of us can fulfill

  Rolls, I must have rolls

  The soft kind that Miss Ruby can manage

  Damien appears sweet, as boys go, and offers

  An untested heart. He needs a girl

  Who thinks of love as June pleasant days

  Or shopping

  With nothing lost that cannot be replaced

  But I am not that girl. I am Street

  My needs are fierce. I am hungry

  And my teeth are sharp. Where will he

  Find the strength to hold me?

  What can he bring to the vacant lot

  Of my horizons

  And whatever he brings

  Will it be street enough to keep us safe

  Against the storm?

  Could it even withstand the voltage of

  His mother’s shock?

  MELISSA’S DREAM

  I was in the living room

  Everyone thought my red dress

  The one with the neat silk stitches

  Was blue and Miss Ruby touched it

  With her long fingers and sharp nails

  And said I shouldn’t wear locs because my hair

  Wasn’t strong enough to wear them

  But I wasn’t wearing locs, my hair was up

  The way Junice had put it and so I put my

  Head against her chest and

  Listened to her heart

  Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump! And I wasn’t as scared

  Anymore and then some other people were walking

  Around the room, only now the brown and purple

  Rug was a wooden floor that sounded shlud-shlud

  As people walked and everyone said not to mind

  Because I looked so pretty in my blue-green dress

  Only Junice knew I was wearing a red dress

  Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Again and again and again

  The MOTHERS

  ERNESTINE BATTLE

  Damien is different, a tender

  Boy with a heart too forgiving for its own dear sake

  Uneasy with the higher way that for him

  Is as natural as rain in spring

  Not that he pretends to royalty or

  Misunderstands his birth although that

  Birth should not be denied, my side at least

  Has made its mark in three eastern cities

  And has been in Who’s Who several times

  Not that any of that matters because

  It is my son’s bright future that concerns

  Me. I don’t want it lost in the slanting

  Chasm of this busy concrete forest

  With its neon snares and jazzy traps

  No, my son has a greater role to

  Play than is offered on this

  Meager stage.

  LESLIE AMBERS

  Junice favors me. Something about the mouth

  The way she stands to her full height

  The arch of her back. The length of those brown

  Thighs that men capture in their minds long

  Before they glimpse the reality of her womanhood

  But she is naïve. Wearing her childhood around

  Her neck like a laurel. At her age I had already lost

  One child and she was on the way. Some would say

  She’s spoiled but I know she just hasn’t

  Found the fight in her as yet. We are scufflers

/>   We in the Ambers clan.

  We don’t let each other down. She

  Will fight by my side as I fought at Miss

  Ruby’s side. She knows what family means

  And it’s that meaning that concerns me.

  No, there is more to her than

  These walls, these cells, can stand against.

  ERNESTINE

  It is not the petty hustlers

  Who worry me. He’ll handle them

  It’s the unsuspected ones. Bright

  And so clever in their come-ons

  That he will think that he is the hunter

  Not the hunted. Easy money

  And easier pleasures waiting

  For him to taste, to be enticed

  By a pretty face, a quick and

  Breathless conquest. He’ll think it’s love.

  I know better

  LESLIE

  It’s not the glaring mornings

  That worry me. She’ll handle them

  It’s the quiet nights alone, nights

  In which she thinks that she is cold

  Even as the radiator hiss

  Fills the room or the August heat

  Makes her sweat drip in the darkness

  The nights will make her show herself

  In moonlight as the hunter finds

  Her in his sights. She’ll think it’s love.

  I know there is no such thing.

  ERNESTINE

  I will not let him fall

  In lust with some low child

  With legs that run then fall

  Apart as if surprised

  Upon my solemn oath

  As long as life is in

  My bosom I will hold

  Damien safe. I will!

  LESLIE

  Uh-uh, she won’t fall

  Not my Junice—or turn her back

  On me when I am stuck

  Inside these walls

  Miss Ruby’s mind is nearly gone

  I got no one but my baby girl

  Our destinies will go hand in hand

  As long as there’s breath in me