Snow Globe

Snow falls to quiet
a morning of winter
unsettled by cold

a bird calls
from the wire
along the evergreens

that block salt
spit out by
predatory dumps

garden chimes
undisturbed 
by the flurry

enjoy the respite
from northern blows
sedated by flurries.

I'll See You Again

God willin’
if the creek don’t rise,
I’ll see you again.

Tho’ you weren’t ever mine to hold,
you held my name, 
called it out for strangers to hear-
it didn’t mean much to me then,
but now, as time has passed,
I find that you weren’t lying.
I can feel it most days
even though you’re gone.
It beats in a step next to my stride;
I’ve lost the details and sense that I knew it all;
but the big feeling, the one that you sent 
when you shouted my name,
breathes. The diaphragm draws in and out
beating the rhythm of us.

And if the creek don’t rise,
I’ll hear you say my name next to me.
God willin’, I’ll see you again.


Dialogue

I got out and slipped right back,
you hav'ta have your pipe on the corner-
no ball playing in the alley no more ‘s not safe.

You got to get a job. Maybe you need a job.

I gotta job,
wen to school, bro
still had time-
too much time-
forgot my plan to
stay off the block.

You need to move off the block.

Nah, it’s where I feel comfortable.
I wanna make it better for my people,
give ‘em something that stops the slip;
problem is … there’s not enuf on the block,
the pipe and weed pull you back in.

I’m gonna be a boxer … be on tv,
don’t you want to do something that makes you famous?

Nah, I usta think that I wanted that …
everybody in the hood wants to be a rapper, movie star, basketball player, football player;
tha’s only four things … there’s more things that people from the hood can do-
why aren’t there black doctors? black lawyers?
why isn’t there black anything ‘cept those 4 things and the block?

Not gonna be your block much longer…
got a Starbuck’s bro.

They ain’t in the hood bro-
no way, they ain’t.

They are gonna buy it out like they did in other neighborhoods.

How bro? Families live in them houses.
They gonna move them all out?

Yeah.

No way, bro.
There’s always gonna be a hood,
but we can make it better for us-
keep the shorties busy.

But didn’t you come back here after saying you weren’t going to?

I’m 18 soon-
with a clean slate-
gotta move forward.
I might catch a case again-
maybe when I’m 25 … I don’t know,
but I want to go back to the block
where I’m comfortable.
I want to make it better for my community-

stop the slide.