Free Street Love by Walter Dean Myers Page B

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
    Knowing somewhere there would be a place
    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