A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe: Yusef: Six-by-Eight – Chorus: Hyacinth’s Farewell

by Mahogany L. Browne
In this collection of short stories and poetry, teens and adults in New York City reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic, expressing fear and grief while finding a way toward hope.

Here are links to our lists for the book:

Chorus: Wild Fire – Malachi: Quinies, an Epistolary Epilogue

Chorus: Zombie Apocalypse – Pops: Sal’s

Yusef: Six-by-Eight – Chorus: Hyacinth’s Farewell
15 words 23 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. inmate
    a person serving a sentence in a jail or prison
    No one was allowed to leave the grounds, to make sure the inmates would remain safe from the virus.
  2. matter-of-fact
    concerned with practical matters
    New Kid’s grimaces promise he has more threats to offer, but Maseo Sr. stepped between us and offered a matter-of-fact response.
  3. inhumane
    reflecting a lack of pity or compassion
    Which is just a short word for the inhumane treatment of solitary confinement.
  4. lucrative
    producing a sizeable profit
    I suspected the FPs had us all on medication and made a lucrative side hustle by selling them to folks on the block.
  5. stint
    an unbroken period of time during which you do something
    Symphony, Hyacinth, and I all went to the same school, so even if Symphony missed two weeks here and there during his stints in the hospital, I always felt like someone had my back.
  6. silver lining
    a positive aspect of a difficult situation
    But there are silver linings everywhere.
  7. trivialize
    make insignificant
    “One in 500 people in the U.S. has died from COVID. To try to trivialize it and say it’s nothing, it doesn’t matter, I think it’s just a gross mischaracterization of what we are all living through.”
  8. xenophobic
    having abnormal fear or hatred of foreigners
    Both of us are from different cultural backgrounds, but scholarship recipients staged a weeklong protest of the classist, xenophobic, anti-Black, anti-Semitic, anti-woman, and anti-queer literature of mandatory freshman composition class.
  9. solace
    comfort offered to one who is disappointed or miserable
    And then it was my island and solace in a lonely and chaotic world.
  10. profess
    state freely
    I couldn’t wait to return to school so I could finally profess my like to Xochitl.
  11. palpable
    capable of being perceived
    Our connection was palpable.
  12. strut
    walk in a proud, confident way
    I strut up and down the hallway just to feel something other than numbness.
  13. vicinity
    a surrounding or nearby region
    And the yellow dot means they are in your four-block vicinity.
  14. pique
    call forth, as an emotion, feeling, or response
    It doesn’t allow you to become a stalker or anything — but it does pique your interest and make it more likely that you will try to meet this connection in real life.
  15. tall order
    a formidable task or requirement
    I know, I know, you believe that is a tall order.
Created on Fri Sep 26 04:04:28 EDT 2025 (updated Tue Nov 11 20:08:42 EST 2025)

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