Home
On any given day, minutes
from the East Busway
the driver tells me the poor people ride,
I stroll up Homewood Avenue.
Candy wrappers, bottles, cans,
along the walkway
to the corner of Kelly,
where community college sits.
Before the riots in ’68,
it used to be the 5 & 10, the GC Murphy’s.
My daddy took me there,
bought me the real ring
I squeezed to fit my little finger.
The Belmar Theater, the 35 cent matinee
still exists in Wideman’s trilogy.
I called him on it once.
When was it so cheap?
I wanted to know.
The Grandparents’ house:
7223 Upland Street, the cyclone fence,
monogrammed storm door,
painted steps to the wraparound porch.
Sunday meals, biscuits, greens, yams
my mother ate, hating
her mother-in-law’s habit of tasting
with the cooking spoon.
Doralee Brooks, A Writing Project Fellow (95), teaches at the Community College of Allegheny County where she chairs the Developmental Studies Department. Her poems have more recently appeared or are forthcoming in Uppagus, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Voices from the Attic, and The Paterson Review. She writes with the Madwomen in the Attic poetry workshop.