Zalika Azim

To speak of a lush hot blooded land, to the dispossessed, too busy to visit, 2019

He use to bring those pretty yellow flowers home on weekends when

he’d work long hours uptown at the jazz club. They were the kind my

sister Carrie said reminded her of the first time she laid eyes on Lina,

and those evening trumpeters she placed in her hair on their last night.

I’d sit by the window for hours, long after I’d put Junior and them down,

watchin’ as the street lights flirted with the curtains

while thinkin’ those thoughts.

Every now and then I’d get a whiff of that perfume Mama wanted sprayed

on her resting dress, so she’d still feel warm - like sandalwood,

newspapers and vanilla. Or the saltwater Papa always joked about

sending up, lest we forget we had a place to come back to.

Finally he’d round the corner, stopping briefly at the ol’ fruit stand before

entering the building and climbing the three flights to our apartment.

In he’d enter, kicking his shoes off at the front door, before whispering his

evening greeting which nowadays sounded more like a dispossession than

the first few notes of a hymn.

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The tale of his arrival, 2019

It was always the last Sunday of the month when she'd send me.

I know because Ol' Man John

who was always tighter than Dicks hatband would show up.

He was always whoopin' and hollerin' about how men down here were

only good for coming up six bricks short of a ton when the rent was due

Mama would come out onto the porch in her yellow apron,

always on cue, to tell him that the lord didn't need to hear all that rukus -

not on his day!

Ol' Man would always shoot back some slick line about Mama's mouth

being as big as a bell clapper and he'd be off faster than you could say

Jackie Robinson, leaving only the tracks of his canary red Sunday shoes

and a trail of black pepper to bear the tale of his arrival.

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Aqueduct (despite the bend), 2019

We would all load up into Garfield’s white RV on Saturday mornings,

just as the sun began to play its game of colors alongside the old calvary church

down on St Johns place.

The way all those bits of color shifted reminded me of that time down home

when all us chil’ren would run out to the river to find the pocket change we

overheard Miss Amanda telling Aunt Louise she’d thrown in for luck.

Funny how time pass and we still here banking on luck.

Instead of fishin’ round in the soil for hard silver coins we ride out

to the 430 acres to place our bets on the thoroughbreds.

The river keeps running despite the bend.