Brown
Girls
They
stand on the corner
Up
the block
Brown
girls with heads tossed back
Laughing
too loudly
And
smacking gum,
Weaves
tossing
Painted
fingers snapping
Breasts
popping
Out
of tops too tight
Brown
girls with no place to go.
They
call out to the boys
Across
the way
Brown
boys with heads tossed back
Cussing
too much
And
drinking beer
Pants
sagging
Glowing
ashes flicking
Hands
gripping
The
bulge of a crotch
Brown
boys with no place to go.
- Lemelia Bonner
wreck
an explosion, and teen boys
blow through a stop sign
on a darkened street
hit a family man and wife
on their way to wherever and
not on guard
they pass this way every day
but now it's night
and the time is right
for boys to get rowdy
and drive fast
going wherever they're going
going anywhere
they don't care
in a second lives change
a tree there a wall here
and someone screams
as another tosses beer
into a nearby yard
two try to run
but limbs are failing
gas is spraying?
or maybe it's just water
from a hydrant that was hit.
now neighbors are running
from everywhere
people are coming
to see who's hurt who's alive
did anyone survive?
one woman keeps saying
she saw the whole thing
then from a jeep
a call for help
trapped tight beneath metal
now sirens are blaring
and dozens are staring
but only one moves and dares
to pull the woman halfway out
somehow everyone is breathing
heavy, but hearts still beating
and the night begins to settle
back into a cautious calm.
- Lemelia Bonner
The Wait
She sits in a failing chair by the
window
and peers through a crack at the edge
of the blinds.
There's only a slip of life going by,
but walkers so close she can hear
conversations
on phones, to themselves, or a friend
across the way.
Cars roll so near that every hiss,
horn, and howl
comes right through the cardboard taped
in place
on a house that's falling down all
around her every day,
But she can't do any better, and can't
move much at all.
Maybe she'll just sit here til she
passes away
from lack of reason or lack of care.
And then someone will lay her out in a
cheap, white coffin;
finally let her become again the dust
from which she came.
Sometimes a friend or a son may think
to stop by
to see if she's in place, or has an
easy need to fill.
But not today, no, today no one comes,
and she's just an old, old woman
with nothing more to offer the world.
- Lemelia Bonner
