Ralph and St. Johns, 

My most trafficked intersection 

aside from Utica and Eastern Pkwy 

Safest I’ve ever felt 

14 soles pressed into limestone 7 black women from different walks

Me, in the earlier half of my life

Them, in the later

I wanted to ask away, talk with them, and listen to their history, self-appointed curator to preserve each syllable about:

 |favorite songs| |their greatest mysteries| |right and wrongs|

|foods that remind them of home| |what makes them rub their feet together under a blanket in a cozy fashion| |heritage| |parentage| |letters received| |curl treatment vs keratin|           |hearts full of love scorn or regret|

|their earliest memory| |who’s memories they still honor| |wild misadventures|

|favorite fad|   |when their strut cast the spell over their dearest| |first time feeling God|

  | When they first heard they had too much spice for one tongue| |best-owned jewelry| 

|hand me downs they still keep|

That they preserve for special occasions and leaps in life. 

Maybe one at least one that reminded them of a spirit that once had a body it called home that these women could touch and hug, and whatever trinket that was given to them was a reminder of that person.

I wanted to ask everything and make a record of their stories, cause I know that this wouldn’t ever happen again

In a beat

12 spines against stiff blue seats, I was morning tea

Fresh chamomile flowers with dashes of peppermint leaves

Ginger hints in my smirk and a spritz of citrus

From there sonder began…

We all carried different things atop our heads:

A hoodie

Bonnet

tan fedora with a chain on the band

Wigs from yonder, where you gotta wonder how much those synthetic curls could withstand and kept in place all this time

A headscarf

a fuzzy cap, the kind you know they don’t make anymore but if they did, the quality was stripped to the purest polyester fibers

thoughts of “how am I gonna stretch my check this week

“Which days can i see my family”

“Have I molded myself into this life”

“How much longer am I gonna be here for”

Our heads, full calabashes, pounds of the things we don’t share

And a small jar of honeycomb some of us may hide amongst it all, which awaits a warmth that melts us naked

With a stylish skill to bear burdens, recollections of sermons reverberate, pleas of time reversal, resplendent

We hope to carry it to our destination with no spillage on our rough terrains, not even a drop

Epigenetic duties

Medulla oblongata as a fixed point

Axis of detachment

Bermuda’s slow song sought a dancer, and there we were in a hollow room with it

Our footsteps learned its mystique, the enigmatic appeal, how to leave no trace of what may wander through its veil

These hands continue as normal, we walk as normal, we speak as normal as what’s expected from us

If the music of the day is off pitch, unstitchable, we bare it all till home is a deep sigh away

Chins’ to the sun so radiance can grace radiance

If I could send out a message for all of them to hear is that

Our lives aren’t a fixed point

Instead we descend from it

Pendulum paces,  that send us to and fro, momentous places that we can go

We swing on the joys of life, we swing till we are children again with giggles that vibrate fauna sprouts in dead spaces, we swing from the bad to the good, 

Misfortune’s weight more than 60 percent of our own, Spill the tears and let them roam

May our posture let us live pain-free 

The genesis awaits for you and me