"We're at West 207th!"—
so far away we have to report in
by cell phone from distant lands.
"It looks nice and…civilized,
with window boxes, dog walkers—
we met a pit bull named Brad Pitt."
....
Gap-toothed globes, streetlights with
tongues of ivy in dusty heads, roots
in walkways gone astray. Rat nest
paths and carbon cave-dreams of firelight,
Lenape Indians and shadow battles.
Outcrop bones famished.
We need a topo map to find a deli.
Downtown by New York City
Transit Authority underground.
Four girls loud up
a tight orange corner, lurid
with silk-brown scars.
"I like to fight boys, 'cause
they think they hard. Then we
fuck 'em up and they ain't hard."
"I doan like fighten' boys, 'cause
they always like 'Bring out yo brother!'
I didn’t come outta my momma
with my brother. I come out by myself!"
"That bigass bitch Stephanie,
I hadda fight her. She came at me
outta nowhere and I hadda pull
my boot and hit her inna head.
Girls been sayin' she fucked me up,
but I fucked her up."
"I dreamed…I had this dream…"
"You gotta take off your shoes,
specially if you got sandals.
Somebody steps on your heel,
you goin' down."
"I dreamed…I had this dream…
I dreamed I hadda fight Stephanie,
and in this dream, I ain't gonna front,
she fucked me up."
We get off mixed with girls
in the island's innards, and we
rise into the sun on Greenwich
and lose the silk ones in the crowd
and walk to Tea & Sympathy
and have high tea, those fussy
sandwiches cut just so, jam
and clotted cream and whatnots
on the antique teapots
and we eat like savages.
—©Lynna Howard, all rights reserved
