Don’t. I had your mama on a cold day
In December, thirty-some—how old is Leslie?
Never mind, you ask her when she come Home.”
“She got twenty-five years, Miss Ruby.”
“When she come home we got to sit
Down and have a family talk. My
Aunt Louise used to say that once in
A while you had to have a family talk
Get into the Bible. You know Louise was
Always into the Old Testament. Your
Mama come home I’m going to tell her
About the Old Testament. Genesis, and
All that. We ain’t had a family talk for
A while, but when she come home
We need to have us one. Get into the
Bible, and all that.”
“She got twenty-five years, Miss Ruby.”
JUNICE AMBERS looking from the WINDOW of the BUS
We drone along the faceless highway
That is the history of my life
Telephone poles, light poles, pretending
Differences, pretending they are not the
Thousand pages etched of who I am
Each episode was written by somebody
With my dark face, my broad back,
Mama, Miss Ruby, how far back do we go?
Did some Bantu gap-toothed woman
Rise one bright morning
And march willingly to the shore?
To the waiting ships?
We are on the Thruway
Miss Ruby, her mind slipping in and out
Of Knowing, chatters on while Melissa,
My sweet Melissa who already
Knows how to weep without
Tears, leans against the hard window
Passing neon lights play across
Her pretty face, her sadness
The trial is over, the sentence read There are no comforts to share
No songs to ease our sorrow
Only the long bus ride home
LESLIE AMBERS in BEDFORD HILLS PRISON
What are they doing to me? To me?
Groping and groping, reaching to see
If I have hidden my soul somewhere
Between my legs, not seeing it puddle
On the cracked grout floor
Of this steel tomb
They are calling this my forever home
“Hide your body along the green-gray
Walls,” they say
“So we cannot see your crime-ugly face.”
But I know they see everything
They want me not to see myself
But I must, I am desperate to see
My image, my wild eyes searching
For the high of being me again
Of being Leslie, of evoking
Ambers
On the streets of the city
They have taken my Who-I-Am
As well as my What-I-Was
And now I am desperate for them both
Again
“Hey, Princess 649178,
Time to Bend and Grin!”
“Why she think she a princess?”
“Hey, Princess, you got any children?”
“I have two daughters
The oldest is named Junice.”
“Shut up! We don’t care about your dumb family!”
“But you asked—”
“Yeah, but we don’t care.
And neither do you, or you wouldn’t be in here!”
Where is my daughter? Where is Junice?
Why doesn’t she come flying through the walls
Screaming in rage and fury because of
What they are doing to me, to me.
Why doesn’t she break this darkness into
A thousand crumbling fragments
And lift me over the razor wire cliffs
Of my despair?
Where is Miss Ruby, my mother,
With her roots and spells
Where are the black candles
That spell death to my enemies?
Perhaps they are on their way
Perhaps they are at the gates
“Shut up! We don’t care about your dumb family!”
“But you asked—”
“Yeah, but we don’t care.
And neither do you, or you wouldn’t be in here!”
I care, I have always cared
Really.
JUNICE tells her STORY at the FAMILY WELFARE BUREAU
There was a time
When I thought of my life as a journey
At which I would Arrive and be
Beautiful
On clear days, if I shielded my eyes
Just right and squinted into the distance
I could almost see the station’s sign
Bold and shining on a summer-green hill
But none of that was true
There were no tracks climbing
Like a silver arrow toward a place called
Future. No friendly tower or friendly faces
Eager for my appearance
No, it is all cycle and recycle
What the great-grandmother has done
Is to rut the earth for her children
What the grandmother has done
Is to widen the furrow for her children
What the mother has done
Is to square the pit
Deepening it for the ritual to come
And here I sit, grave deep among the
Waiting worms, staking my claim
As they stake theirs.
What do I want, you ask
What do I whisper to God
In the early mornings?
Only to keep Melissa safe
To hold her close
Away from the past, away from
The expectation in your eyes
Is this too much to ask?
DAMIEN on a BENCH in the SCHOOL OFFICE
The bench in the office is four feet wide
So when she was there, elbows on her knees
There should have been enough room
Except for someone else’s green backpack
Against the slatted side
Which barely left enough room
For me to sit, but I did
She looked up at me, and I smiled
She looked away
Fran leaning across the ledgers on the counter
Commented on my admission to Brown
“Your mother must be very proud.”
I hear her sigh. Then she was called into
The inner sanctum
I could hear snatches of conversations
Words piled on her.
Must. Responsibility. Days missed from school.
She came out and sat down again
Elbows on knees.
Not noticing our hips touching
Or the current between us
“You want to stop for coffee?” I asked, surprising myself
JUNICE on a BENCH in the SCHOOL OFFICE
I anchored myself on the bench
Waiting to be called into the office
The office clerks chirped Damien’s name
Wonderful this, amazing that
The other side of the universe
He came in and sat next to me
Touching me, his legs stretched out
The Lord, waiting for his homage
Me in the office, hearing the words
Wond’ring if most of the world was like me
Listening to the judgments of others
The warnings, the I-Told-You-Sos
The sentences.
On the bench again, waiting for the written
Notification. He speaks.
“Coffee?” He says. “Why?” I ask. He shrugs, our hips are touching
I’m not your kind, I think.
“Some other time?” I say.
“Fine,” He says. I search for words that
seem
Softer. “The bench is small,”
I say. “That’s all right,” He says quickly,
His shy smile illuminating the answer.
“Can I call you?” He asks.
“Why?” I ask.
DAMIEN and KEVIN and JUNICE in the SUPERMARKET
Kev, there’s Junice, I spoke to her yesterday
She strikes me as…
You hit on her?
No, man, we exchanged a few words, and…
And you laid out your line
I’m seeing her differently, you know
She’s sweet, neat, and filet mignon
The best kind of meat
No, what I feel is that
Somehow she’s more real than
I’m used to being around
It’s as if I found something within me.
You’re tripping, bro. She’s a slick chick
I got to admit. She’s as strong as she’s
Long but I don’t get the sudden vision
This heated rush that raises one dark
Flower, lovely as it is, above the
Bush.
Kevin, things are happening around me, man
Things that you expected
Right, and that I’ve never rejected
Things that happen according to a plan
And maybe that’s what makes Junice shine
What makes her seem suddenly fantastic
Why in a garden that for all the world seemed mine
She is the only rose that doesn’t smell of plastic
Look, there, see how she turns, how she touches
Her hair. How she gestures as if writing
Her name in the air.
Ah, new, strange, yes, I see.
A little slip and slide when
Roxanne is not around
A little grip and glide with
Someone new. I’m hip. If you had slipped
Me the 411 from the get-go
Then I wouldn’t have thought you
Were losing it.
Kevin, you’re never going to change
That girl is doing things in my chest
That make my heart happy and
I think that feeling in my stomach is my
Liver laughing to be alive again
If the feeling goes lower
You got my vote. But she’s coming
This way. Now she sees us. She’s smiling
She’s yours, man. Rap her up and
Take her home if you want, but since
I got your back, let me stack some wisdom on
You. Give Junice some serious slack
Or give your mama a heart attack. And
That’s a fact, Jack!
JUNICE in the SUPERMARKET
Melissa wants spaghetti
Miss Ruby wants chicken
But won’t remember what she asked for
We have some beef left over and enough
On the card for onions, cheese, and rolls,
I’ll make sandwiches
And not think of Damien
Who is he? High horsing into my life
And me teetering on the rim of the
Volcano, choking on its fumes
He strews his path with prose
And expects me to skip from verb to noun
Making garlands of his wit
How dare he hi-yo-Silver me when I am so
Needy, my palms turned up in begging
Lágrimas de luna por favor
The onions are perfect. Melissa
Will want to keep one on the kitchen
Table. A nine-year-old romantic
Wanting to be an Old Master
What can Damien want of me?
Once he smells the sulfur pouring
From my life he will run
When he reaches for my hands
And finds them wringing in hopelessness
He will shrink away. What does he know
Of my lips, twisted in cursing and defiance
What does he know of my body
Bent double with the weight of my days?
Won’t he cringe and move away? Isn’t that what
Men do to girls like me?
Cheese wrapped in plastic, colorless Wicca cheese
But good enough on leftover beef with
Fried onions and Goya sauce
Thinking he is a man, he invites me
To coffee. Thinking he is a moment away from the
Rage I have become, I will go
Too soon, or reach too greedily into
Promises neither of us can fulfill
Rolls, I must have rolls
The soft kind that Miss Ruby can manage
Damien appears sweet, as boys go, and offers
An untested heart. He needs a girl
Who thinks of love as June pleasant days
Or shopping
With nothing lost that cannot be replaced
But I am not that girl. I am Street
My needs are fierce. I am hungry
And my teeth are sharp. Where will he
Find the strength to hold me?
What can he bring to the vacant lot
Of my horizons
And whatever he brings
Will it be street enough to keep us safe
Against the storm?
Could it even withstand the voltage of
His mother’s shock?
MELISSA’S DREAM
I was in the living room
Everyone thought my red dress
The one with the neat silk stitches
Was blue and Miss Ruby touched it
With her long fingers and sharp nails
And said I shouldn’t wear locs because my hair
Wasn’t strong enough to wear them
But I wasn’t wearing locs, my hair was up
The way Junice had put it and so I put my
Head against her chest and
Listened to her heart
Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump! And I wasn’t as scared
Anymore and then some other people were walking
Around the room, only now the brown and purple
Rug was a wooden floor that sounded shlud-shlud
As people walked and everyone said not to mind
Because I looked so pretty in my blue-green dress
Only Junice knew I was wearing a red dress
Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Again and again and again
The MOTHERS
ERNESTINE BATTLE
Damien is different, a tender
Boy with a heart too forgiving for its own dear sake
Uneasy with the higher way that for him
Is as natural as rain in spring
Not that he pretends to royalty or
Misunderstands his birth although that
Birth should not be denied, my side at least
Has made its mark in three eastern cities
And has been in Who’s Who several times
Not that any of that matters because
It is my son’s bright future that concerns
Me. I don’t want it lost in the slanting
Chasm of this busy concrete forest
With its neon snares and jazzy traps
No, my son has a greater role to
Play than is offered on this
Meager stage.
LESLIE AMBERS
Junice favors me. Something about the mouth
The way she stands to her full height
The arch of her back. The length of those brown
Thighs that men capture in their minds long
Before they glimpse the reality of her womanhood
But she is naïve. Wearing her childhood around
Her neck like a laurel. At her age I had already lost
One child and she was on the way. Some would say
She’s spoiled but I know she just hasn’t
Found the fight in her as yet. We are scufflers
We in the Ambers clan.
We don’t let each other down. She
Will fight by my side as I fought at Miss
Ruby’s side. She knows what family means
And it’s that meaning that concerns me.
No, there is more to her than
These walls, these cells, can stand against.
ERNESTINE
It is not the petty hustlers
Who worry me. He’ll handle them
It’s the unsuspected ones. Bright
And so clever in their come-ons
That he will think that he is the hunter
Not the hunted. Easy money
And easier pleasures waiting
For him to taste, to be enticed
By a pretty face, a quick and
Breathless conquest. He’ll think it’s love.
I know better
LESLIE
It’s not the glaring mornings
That worry me. She’ll handle them
It’s the quiet nights alone, nights
In which she thinks that she is cold
Even as the radiator hiss
Fills the room or the August heat
Makes her sweat drip in the darkness
The nights will make her show herself
In moonlight as the hunter finds
Her in his sights. She’ll think it’s love.
I know there is no such thing.
ERNESTINE
I will not let him fall
In lust with some low child
With legs that run then fall
Apart as if surprised
Upon my solemn oath
As long as life is in
My bosom I will hold
Damien safe. I will!
LESLIE
Uh-uh, she won’t fall
Not my Junice—or turn her back
On me when I am stuck
Inside these walls
Miss Ruby’s mind is nearly gone
I got no one but my baby girl
Our destinies will go hand in hand
As long as there’s breath in me