An Inner City Tale 

(ODE TO CABRINI GREEN)

(FIRSTPUBLISHED IN THE ALESTE IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY @ EDWARDSVILLE

FEBRUARY 1999)

Born into a tenement in the heart of the windy city in the summer of sixty-nine,

Fourth small mouth to be fed and second girl in line.

A time just after the assassinations of Malcolm, Medgar, JFK, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

A time when proclamations like "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud," were the in thing.

When Bell-bottomed jeans and afros swayed effortlessly against the wind,

An era when Motown was king and Stax was In!

Our guardians were diligent and always instilled in us the need to get ahead,

Stressing that there is strength in numbers and to stick together no matter what was said.

70's, school bells, limited teaching apparatuses and burned out teachers and no recess,

Escaping boredom, through reading autobiographies always held my interest.

Benefiting from RIF (Reading is Fundamental) reading Angelou, Hansberry, Morrison, Moody, X and Cruz.

Discovering and rediscovering, Richard Wright, Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. Brown scarred knees

from repeatedly falling upon thick blacktop. Corner stores, liquors stores, ice cream, pickles, Now-n-laters, barber and beauty shops.

 Loud sounds blaring to break through red glistening project walls, Aretha, Chaka, Diana, O'Jays, Jacksons, Curtis Mayfield and Lou Rawls.

Broken elevators, and broken dreams, straightening combs and fade creams. Mayoral candidates making mockeries out of project residents

by handing out V-necks, turkeys, and miniature Christmas trees in exchange for votes. Some project residents coming undone and always

at each others throats. Skateboards, hopscotch, jump rope, Red Light Green Light and Mother May I?

Young men masquerading as gangsters on street corners, over already-conquered city turf, why? Soon childhood laughter is silenced

by gunshots and young bodies dropping. Caskets, tears, sensing my own mortality at 13, anticipating my own heart stopping.

Guardians' tenacity paid off in the spring of '83 they rescued me, Before our transition out of the ghetto, I noticed young women making

spaces in their bellies for little ones, completely throwing caution to the wind, Yeah, babies having babies starting the cycle all over again...