Locomotion: Locomotion

Don't jumble your ideas
Ms. Marcus says
Every line
should count.

Sometimes when the missing gets real bad
I go to the drugstore and before the guard starts
following me around like I'm gonna steal something
I go to the cosmetics lady and ask her if she has it.

Today's a bad day
Is that haiku? Do I look
like I even care?

Ms. Marcus says mostly sonnets are about love
I think about Mama and Daddy and my sister
how Mama and Daddy are somewhere up above
and Lili's just far away enough for me to miss her.

I was surprised to see Eric up there
with a choir robe on.

Epistle Poem

Hey Pops,

Today our teacher showed us this poem by this poet guy named Langston Hughes.

It's been four years, Miss Edna says to the Lord
How long will he carry this burden?

This guy Todd that lives next door to Miss Edna's building got a pigeon coop on his roof and sometimes I go up there and watch Todd waving this huge white sheet till all the pigeons come swooping and flying above us—back and forth and up and down making those croaky pigeon sounds.

But sometimes Lili's new mama don't want me to
come there
and she don't want to bring Lili to Miss Edna's house
so we meet at the agency.

The floors got scuffs on them but they shine.

It's brown and getting too small but Miss Edna says you gotta look presentable for Saturday visits so Miss Edna gave
me twenty dollars
for the girl across the street to braid my hair.

Not a lot of people want boys
Not foster boys
that ain't babies.

This girl LaTenya that I like a little bit
got her tongue sticking outa
the side of her mouth like she's really concentrating.

I'm slouching
waiting for that stupid teacher to say
"Sit up straight, Lonnie."

I'm just sitting here with nothing
to say wishing Ms. Marcus would vaporize
like the people do on Star Trek.

Then you and your dogs are throwing
the ball around and talking about
girls and ballplayers and stuff
you're gonna have one day
A red car
some slamming kicks
a shearling coat
a pocket full of money
a pretty girl
a satellite dish and cable
on and on

Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.

She says he has a disease
and some of his cells are shaped funny.

It's not contagious.

Does anybody know what a sickle is, she says.

Then she says, Eric has sickle-cell anemia.

I like free verse when you can write anything you want
any way you want but Ms. Marcus says
there's a time for form and a time for free verse
which I think is a stupid, very teacher thing to say.

On Sundays, the preacher gives everyone a chance
to repent their sins.

Epitaph Poem

for Mama

Liliana C. Motion
Born in October
died in December
But that's not all
that I remember.

Miss Edna says it's blasphemous to ask those kinds of questions but I just wouldn't mind knowing some answers.