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The street deserted. Nobody,

only you and one last

dirt colored robin,

fastened to its branch

against the wind. It seems

you have arrived

late, the city unfamiliar,

the address lost.

And you made such a serious effort –

pondered the obstacles deeply,

tried to be your own critic.

Yet no one came to listen.

Maybe they came, and then left.

After you traveled so far,

just to be there.

It was a failure, that is what they will say.

THOUGHT #3

Tyler Perry knows how to bring everything together wit all the stories? And all the singing? And all the different people talking?

THOUGHT #1

And Tyler Perry don’t never forget to bring in the spirit’ch’alities.

THOUGHT #2

‘Cause Tyler Perry loves his Mama—

THOUGHT #6

And the Lord—

THOUGHT #1

So write a nice, clean Tyler Perry-like gospel play for your parents please?

Unlike the other countries, this one

Begins in houses, specific houses and the upstairs room

Where constitutions vibrate in the blockfront drawers,

A Queen Anne highboy, or maybe the widow’s walk

On a farmhouse hundreds of miles inland and believed

By the family to be a lookout for Indians though clearly

It was a pioneer’s conceit, fresh as the latest politics

From home: so much for that innocent thesis The Frontier.

“I want to go where it’s cold,” Lourdes told her husband. They began to drive. “Colder,” she said as they passed the low salt marshes of Georgia, as if the word were a whip driving them north. “Colder,” she said through the withered fields of a Carolina winter. “Colder,” she said again in Washington, D.C., despite the cherry-blossom promises, despite the white stone monuments hoarding winter light. “This is cold enough,” she finally said when they reached New York.

Masters, never trust me. Listen: each day

is a Negro boy, chained, slogging out of the waves,

panting, gripping the sum of his captain, the head,

ripped off, the blood purpling down, the red

hair flossed between the knuckles, swinging it

before him like judgment, saying to the mist,

then not, then quietly only to himself, This is what

I’ll do to you, what you dream I do, sir, if you like it.

                    MOSES

yo ass gon rise up to yo full potential too

gon git up off dis block

man

you remember

dat sunday school

ol reverend Missus be like

                    (as reverend missus)

sed uh

do you wanna cross dat river now chillun

sed uh

do you wanna cross dat river now chillum

                    KITCH

                    (gasping)

pass ovuh

                    MOSES

yeah nigga damn

i feel like we cud do dis shit

you feel me

git up off dis block

                    KITCH

amen!

                    MOSES

be all we cud be

                    KITCH

yes lawd!