Ordinary Hazards: List 4

I cleverly surmised
the second year
would be the same.

Hence, I was smugly prepared
with a smile of victory,
certain of the perfect score
awaiting me.

After all, was I not
the most brilliant writer in the class—
nay, in the entire borough
of the Bronx?

Flabbergasted,
I wandered blindly
for the remainder
of the day,
in complete
and utter
shock.

South African singer
Miriam Makeba’s
close-cropped coif
is the sleek ’do I imagined
when I posed in the mirror.

This I explain meticulously
the first time I go to Doll’s shop for a trim.

Our lives are routinely unrecorded,
perpetuated
however innocently,
by unthinking parents
and other performers of
a dark art—
withholding proof
of presence.

Roger led a small troupe in Harlem
and invited me to join.

“A writer/actress/dancer,”
I rattled off,
and she chortled.

I loved the sound
of conga drums
in that grand old Brooklyn theater
built back in the 1930s,
offering its faded velvet curtains,
chipped paint, and dull cornices
with barely the reminiscence of gilt
by the time I saw them.

I loved the sound
of conga drums
in that grand old Brooklyn theater
built back in the 1930s,
offering its faded velvet curtains,
chipped paint, and dull cornices
with barely the reminiscence of gilt
by the time I saw them.

Mention Harlem
and the Apollo is what
often comes to mind,
but Daddy introduced me to
another entertainment venue:
National Memorial African Bookstore

I roamed the narrow aisles,
gingerly tracing the
delicately bound spines
as if each was
a book-shaped diamond,
the name of each author a ruby

Zora Neale Hurston, John O. Killens,
Rosa Guy, Gwendolyn Brooks,
Henry Dumas, Chinua Achebe—
hundreds and thousands
of beautiful books by and about
people who look like me,
stories from the African Diaspora
my father spoke of passionately.

His beautiful brain
a wreck, a relic to be
relegated to the past.

The adults reprimanded us,
understanding nothing of our love.

Daddy’s death unequivocal,
I came home from the funeral
with space in my brain for questions.

We all know—knew—
his penchant for
nodding off
anytime, anywhere,
which is why he avoided
getting behind the wheel
when he was sleepy.

The sheer muscular light
of Khalil Gibran’s language
made me want to be him
on the inside

It hurt to imagine a universe
devoid of his ministering melodies.

My thoughts were on me
missing a father forever gone, off
creating cantatas in heaven,
and praising God
in pizzicato.

Dressing for the day,
I found the pristine pair
of milk-white ice skates
Daddy lavished on me
last Christmas.

Finally, out into the light

it comes,
 sheepishly.

A call to an old friend

woke visions of me
clinging to the rails

at Wollman's Rink

in Central Park,
tentatively pushing off onto the ice,

holding Debra's hands

for dear life

And there, flashes of

sipping hot cocoa

on the sidelines,

inaugurating my

lifelong tenure

as spectator

And there, flashes of

sipping hot cocoa

on the sidelines,

inaugurating my

lifelong tenure

as spectator

The church service
had long ended, yet
there I sat, discovering
the meaning of lethargy,
gazing listlessly
at the pipe organ,
which stared back, offering
no answer.

The church service
had long ended, yet
there I sat, discovering
the meaning of lethargy,
gazing listlessly
at the pipe organ,
which stared back, offering
no answer.

FELONY ON FALLOW GROUND

Back home from a neighborhood
basketball game, I ran to my room
to rip off my sweaty shirt and change into
something dry, but first I stopped
to jot down a few thoughts
in my spiral notebook, which was
nowhere to be found.

I felt my arm draw back, muscles taut
and ready to pound that sick, smiling face
until every tooth went flying, but
a single thought caught me in time.