The Invitation
2015
Tonight she asks you to sleep
with her. both of you in the bed
with siderails, a plastic mattress pad
below.
What’s in a Name?
2015
“All over (America), Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand, and the wonder is not that so many are ruined—but that so many survive!”
JAMES BALDWIN 1955
Walks with the Chowhound
2015
Selby is a chowhound. an inveterate, unrelenting, willfully indiscriminate gastronome of Saint Paul street food. naturally he is named after the street where he lives, Selby avenue, and naturally, when I come to dog sit him, we commence our journeys from that haunt of celebrated eateries, dine-ins, and dessert stops.
Empty Promise
2015
The world is filled with empty promises.
it’s like when you tell a person you love them,
and they say it back,
but after that
y’all never speak again.
The Drive
2015
Not wanting to alarm my husband and infant son, in case they’ve fallen back asleep, I don’t call. I don’t even text. But I do take a picture with my camera-phone, because I need proof that I’ve done it, that I’m actually here: sitting in a 2005 toyota Matrix, outside the Saint anthony Park library. this is incredible.
In Praise of Aging
2015
In praise of buses rattling through the streets
In praise of passengers jostling for a seat
In praise of a transfer I didn’t need to buy
In praise of snow falling from the sky, and my down coat
Bought secondhand but warm
Silverheels
2015
It was my mom’s first marriage proposal. At eight, she was the older woman. George was only six. After hasty consideration, Mom turned him down. As she explained to her mother, she couldn’t marry George. He liked carrots. She didn’t.
Photograph
2015
The photo had sat on the windowsill for the last twenty years. It had borne the sun’s ultraviolet tentacles until they sucked the ink from each pore. The image was that of the first child, a promise of greatness and potential to be cultivated.
Of Arthur “Chan” McWatt (March 10, 1926–April 3, 2012)
2015
Saint Paul recently lost one of its most sterling examples of what it means to be a responsible, useful, and compassionate citizen. That individual was Arthur Chandler McWatt.
Home Is Knowing the Path to Her Door
2015
I laughed out loud when Bobbie finally confided to me the thought that struck her when she first heard my voice on the phone: “Oh, Lord. Another white woman looking for a Black care provider for her Black child.”
Park Two
2015
What’s this park named?” Owen asked as he clambered up wooden steps. My wife and I glanced at each other and shrugged.