eastbaypoetics.com

i moved to a quieter neighborhood. everyone comes out if a weird noise arrives. no one can get away with much.

i live here for three weeks & realize one day on the sunny sidewalk on my way to the local coffee house that i am walking with my keys in my hand. my right hand, the way i do when i’m walking alone after dark. fingers fingering the sharp points like i’d caress a lover. almost cutting myself on the edge.

an afternoon of lemon yellow light & this distrust. i finish my descent down the hill toward high street, thinking of the men who clear a path for me on these macarthur boulevard sidewalks. who stop to tell me i’m pretty & then get out of my way.

i’m safe here, i think.

where am i?

my fingers are still rubbing my keys.

where am i? i’ve lived in this neighborhood before. on campus at mills. the gunshots on seminary avenue, on the other side of the college, hid from me the serenity of the oakland hills. now the absence of berkeley traffic noise and my fear of opening the front door at night could abate a little. i had returned to the laurel district, after all, for peace.

there’s something about those keys planted between my fingers, prepared to strike. there’s so much rage in my bones, fighting to reach the surface of my skin, i almost want someone to hassle me. i almost want to make a scene. i know if it happens, i will spill blood.

where am i? where are the nasty roommates who leave crusty food all over the kitchen? their snide side comments dripping with poison. the racket of late night BART trains whizzing by toward the freeway. the muggers who live around the corner. the purple house where they give away fresh produce on fridays.

once i reach the coffee shop, i put my keys away. between a novel & my wallet. i sling my purse over a chair. order my single decaf americano. watered down espresso for my picky stomach. that’s the table where a fiancé told me he fucked a prostitute while away in L.A. that’s the spot me & my lesbian lover, during my junior year of college, matched the amount of coffee in our cups with cold half-&-half. across the street is the apartment where we breakfasted before sex on saturday mornings, listening to KPFA. down the street is where i had my first-ever date with a woman. the taquería where i made her taste dark Senorial grape soda for the first time. right there, the bar & the burger stand where a large black man accused us of being lovers. “y’all are doin big things up there in college, ah?” big things. indeed.

the laurel district used to make me pine for whoever my lover was at the time. now, these streets are mine. i am making my home among these memories. these realities of struggle & slow ascent. the history of my consciousness. the years my rage was vented into politics, before poetry came back to redeem me.

at the laurel bookstore i read my work publicly for the first time. it was that year, 2004, that i decided to fuck becoming an intellectual property lawyer & write more poems instead.

after five years, i still don’t know where i am. but since my last major breakup, these streets have seemed to embrace me rather than stifle. love rather than chase away. i accept the love of the laurel the way i accept the love of those who have called me theirs somewhere among the names of these blocks: maybelle, fruitvale, hyacinth. love that didn’t outlast the macarthur boulevard concrete but was love nonetheless.

whose path will i cross next? fondling my keys between the fingers of my right hand, i walk toward 35th avenue, where a fresh salmon steak & my future await.

© tahminah zaman 2008