My shiny bookshelves are lined with treasures. Empty cans, their labels removed, their ribbed steel skins polished with silver polish. I wish they were gold. I have rings, there, rings from our trip to Mexico when I was five. Also on the shelves: pictures of jewelry cut out from magazines, glued to cardboard and propped upright; one of the good spoons from the sterling silver my grandmother sent my parents when they were married; silver my mother hates (”god-awful tacky”) and a small collection of nickels, dimes, and quarters, each of which has been boiled and polished with silver polish while watching Donnie and Marie or Tony Orlando and Dawn.

Mock- Defoe

My bookshelves shine and are lined with treasures and adornments.  Slivery ribbed steel cans, and rings I kept from a voyage to Mexico when I was five.  I wish the cans were gold. They’d then look better in my palace.  Along with the cans and rings I have dried papers that have drifted ashore, leaning upright against the wall.  My favorite spoon of sterling silver I kept. My grandmother had given them my parents for their wedding though my mother disliked the slivery gleam as she thought it tacky.   I also have my coin collection of nickels dimes and quarters. They also have a nice shine to them.

Off the porch.

“Then do whatever the hell you please “Mama had said

As he stood in the doorway, looking at

 The streetlights with the Avenue whistling for him to

 Join in the sounds of the dice (1) clacking together. Of

Felons, pimps, and ol’ timers,(2)  looking to get lucky off the Steele store

Front security gates.

The reason the crime rate stays the way it do.

Every block on the Avenue oozed with darkness

pulsing with the spark of the jakes. (3)

Checking out the felonies of Blue Hill Ave.

Gloom hung in shadows courtesy of the

Night crawling get ‘em boys.(4)

Just the reason he balanced the razor blade on his tongue

Trying not to dent up the roof of his mouth.  

He was free to mix with the clanging brown bagged 40’s(5)

Returning to the muck stained pavement and

 The smell of blunt(6) smoke, factory exhaust  

Dimming the light show of the traffic

And the flickering lights of Closed or dying Mom and Pop shops. (7)

He was off the porch(8). “Bad as I wanna be, right?”

First time on the Avenue at night without a purpose.

Wasn’t as cool as it looked from the window.

Biggie(9) and Tupac’s(10) Avenues must have been better.

Wasn’t no hoes(11) to be found

That weren’t going to give him

A burn(12) in his hole to remember ‘em by.  

Saw it and; Cool to go home, really.

“Fuck you doing out here lil nigga

 Face all wrickled up like you

scerd or sumtin, Can tell you ain’t from round here”

Pyro, the street performer who

 Blew and swallowed fire at the red lights

And told jokes at the greens, said.

Waiting to cross the street heading back towards home.  A

Young teenage girl gripping the top of her daughter’s stroller                                                              

   Rocked back and forth with laughter. “ He Aint’, built like that,(13)

He’s a shook one,(14)”  As he passed her by.

 Heading home, he was just glad he had a place to go

Footnotes:

1. A way of referring to “Cee-Lo” within urban vernacular.  A game played with three dice, commonly gambled upon in urban areas.
2. An assorted group of druggy’s and alcoholics usually found hanging out near Taverns or Gas stations and convenient stores. Men usually convinced they know the “real” truths of life.
3. Way of referring to the police commonly used amongst urban males from the Boston and New York.
4. Young thugs known for robbing people in the very late hours of night or in the early morning.
5. A 40 ounce container of beer
6. A hollowed out cigar re-rolled with marijuana
7. Locally owned small businesses
8. No longer under the control of one’s parents
9. Arguably the Best rapper to come out of New York
10. Arguably the Best rapper to come out of California
11.  Girls known for being promiscuous
12. Slang term for  the sexually transmitted disease Chlamydia
13. Someone equipped with the knowledge necessary for survival on the streets  
14. A person considered on the bottom of the urban social food chain slightly higher than a snitch.