Summer and the City

Summer nights cool came down

blotting heat like a kiss for colored children.

Heat surged

as we danced jagged up and down the street,

played hide and seek.

Last night, night before

Twenty-four robbers

at my door.

I got up

let em in

Hit em in the head

with a rollin pin.

All hid? Among the leaves

of church hedges

we smelled

something slow and splendid

in our sweat.

Our fathers we knew worked good

jobs that required muscle.

Our mothers in day work

used elbow grease and unwritten receipts

for smothered chicken and gravy,

caused white women to envy and delight.

Outside mothers waited for aid checks

and a long gone man; large women

on folding chairs

ate chunks of Argo starch.

Lean days, sugar sandwiches,

ketchup, or mayonnaise.

Missing meat a vague notion.

Love, manna.

Twilight, blessed the block,

poured from a dark man’s mouth

like a spout of Joe Louis milk,

our champion toast

heralding the greatest’s arrival

however long the getting there.

Slow rocking grandmothers

spit out words into small cans

held in their hands.

Their eyes trained on us

from Deep South porches

we never left behind.

Never left us.

Even after Exodus.

Mouths wide open, we drank

the evening’s pleasures.

Men, women who loved us more

than we could have known.

We were their quick, flashing hope-

                                              treasures.

The memory of us

Their milk.     Their honey.