People say you can tell a lot about a woman's style by what her nails look like.
For my mother, acrylics with baby pink sparkly french-tips.
For the blonde sitting at the nail dryer, coral.
Something about the color
looks strange with her new engagement ring.
She talks about how the second time she hung out with her fiancé
she asked him to paint her nails.
Her mother, who she insists she'll pay for, gets french tips.
They look new and fresh in contrast to her tarnished wedding ring.
The little girl with skinned knees and bug bites sitting in the chair across from me asks for blue polish on her toe nails.
Her mother tells her she should get pink.

2.
The act of women getting their nails done reminds me of warriors being armed for a fight.
long acrylics,
pointed,
rounded,
squared,
all fit for different types of battle.
Pointed for the woman who has to walk home alone at night,
rounded for the woman in the workplace who must work harder than her male co-workers,
and square for the woman at home raising her kids to know that strength and kindness
are the same thing.


3.
The women who work here speak better English than most high school students.
And their accents tell stories that I will never know.
An older woman speaks loudly and slowly,
she treats them as if they do not understand.
She will not speak to anyone but the owner; she wants him to translate what she wants to the salon workers.
What she doesn't realize is
that she is the only person here who doesn't understand.

4.
The little girl's doll is named Tessa.
She tells me that she likes my hair and shoes,
even though she has been told not to talk to strangers
twice in the last hour she has been here.
She asked her mother for change,
we all assume it's for the gumball machine in the corner.
She puts all of it in the charity jar.
I hope this girl never changes.

5. Having bare nails in a nail salon
feels the same as being naked in public.

6.
I feel terrible for laughing at the women trying to walk in those little salon flip-flops.
Some look like ducks,
others look like trained Barbies;
marching
newly polished,
ready for the world to chip away their coating
over,
and over,
and over again.

One day you'll wake up
and find she has covered the entire house
with handmade lace.

It's things like that
that you love about her.
Even though they make it so difficult to get to your car.

Nothing about her has ever been easy.
She is both peace and upheaval.
She is sleeping in white cotton sheets
and putting your car in a ditch.

She smells like pine and sugar cookies,
and she makes you want to catch snowflakes on your tongue;
but she's also the reason you're stuck at home
running out of food to eat.

But after the memories of her,
of frost bitten noses and chapped lips,
of crowded holiday parties, and apple cider that burns your mouth
have all faded away,
you will meet this girl
and her name is Spring.

On a distant summer
a girl walked four miles
to sell fruits at the haat
and mowed by the May heat
fell asleep on a patch of concrete.

The noon dusts played around her
sleep little girl rest your feet
the winds will play you a song
refresh you with dreams so sweet
the walk back home won't be long.

The sun had slid the shadows grown
when opened her dream dazed eyes
there she was at the haat all alone
her fruits in the basket had dried.

She had dreamed a round dime
clutched in her palm
colored gold with her wish

she had slept thru the time
and when the winds calmed
held nothing to buy home a fish.

Time has flown those dusts far away
years have grown her wise
yet when the winds blow lonely in May
her tears she cannot disguise.

Winter is coming but I fear I am not ready.
I may have spent too much time chasing sunsets that I've failed to notice the leaves changing.
Reds, oranges, yellows, and browns--
They came upon me before I had a chance to grab a jacket.
Now I'm left outside shivering.
Waiting.

Longing for a warmer day.
But the only day is today,
And I am at a loss.

The leaves are finishing their descent, eagerly awaiting to see their friends once more.
And as I watch, I am envious, so envious.
These leaves-- they are quick to change.
Quick to adapt without a single worry of what's next.
They know that reunion is coming soon.
Soon they will feel the rough edges of those they grew up with.
Soon they will echo together.

Winter is coming.
Winter is coming.

They whisper quietly as they crunch underneath my boot.

*Winter is coming.
Come quickly, dear friend,
For winter is coming.

My dear Icarus,
Have you brought tales of gold for me?
You-- the master of self,
The one who held his own thread and shears.
Don't share of how hard you beat your wings
But how the air beat against your brow.
Don't echo your father's faded cries
But sing the songs of the Aegean sea--
Sing them only for me!

My sweet Icarus,
Is the world as grand as the travelers say?
Are crumbling maps and hand-spun tales nothing to compare?
I've read of Sicily, where your father rests his mourning head.
I've traced its rivers as they curved against my torn papyrus.
Sicily, the land of Aetna.
Oh, to watch the land shake at the beckoning of her call
(Oh, to fly free of these labyrinth walls)!

My darling Icarus,
Tell me-- is life better above the blanket of Grecian blue?
Is it better than what the Fates designed?
Is it better than what I hold today
(please, let it be more than today)?

My beloved Icarus,
Will you give me your wings--
The mingling of feather, wax, and dreams.
Will you give me your wings and
Your will to yearn higher and higher

So that I too can reach the city of gold.

Tonight I decided that I love the way that he looks
at me.
With eyes softer than infinite rolling clouds,
they make the finite
nature of my haphazard existence feel appreciably less
confining.

Langston* said what happens
when dreams don't come true:
they fester, stink, or explode

but hell, hear what I say
colored girls ain't got no dreams,
what we got is schemes to make it
from here 'til tomorrow

and we don't drown saggin'
sorrow in gin, or the big H--least ways
not all of us do

it's true, the man done piled
on ****, high as it can be stacked on us
but we don't all ride no pity bus

the streets don't weep for the weak
or those of us who spread our legs to get us
a baby--a toy all our own

cause when he's all grown, he ain't
goin' be there to fill our empty bellies
or make us proud

so go on say it loud:
black girls don't need nobody
show 'em the way

and one day, we goin'
take what's ours--we just don't expect
to reach for no stars

we be fine with settlin'
for someone callin' us by name
and not feelin' no **** shame

Covenant Avenue, Harlem, 1968

Teresa climbs on the bus
before the sun, if she has
the fare

to get there, where she
makes the bread; she's been at this
two of her nineteen years  

yet she has fears, they will
come for her--green card or not;
though they like her rolls

she kneads the big *****, pulls,
pinches, a sculpting of dough, a laying
of trays, one after another

then, from the Iglesias,
they come, decked in their finery
though she does not see

she only hears the litany
of language she can't comprehend,
a clanging of trays, laughter

the urging of the jefe to work
faster, bake the bread; the communion
wafers did not fill them

now they are here, breaking fast,
forgetting the words they just heard
the songs they sang

Teresa does not complain; she
is glad to feed the worshipers, though
they will never know her name

nor will they stop for
her in the pouring rain,
the blistering sun

Teresa never wavers
next Sabbath will be the same:
dawn, the dough, the oven

it is the work--her hands
which make the bread others break,
the grace granted to serve

holy, holy, holy...