jazz

by Suzi Q. Smith

today I
almost
cried at
the sight
of a new
high rise
growing
on Welton
Street
taking one
more swipe
at the sky
one more
scrape at
the memory
of welcome
in a place
that has
forgotten
itself
and me
along with it
not long ago,
it seems,
me and Cecile
and Naomi
had a block
party here
one Saturday
afternoon,
showed The Wiz
at Blackberries
listened to
a jazz trio
outside on
the corner
in front of Zona’s
and somebody
called the police
we knew
what we were
up against still
believed then
that we
would win
more than
the names
of artists
long dead
carved into
the façade

years have gone since
my grandfather’s brother
was shot twenty two times
here on Welton Street
in front of his mother’s house
the blood is too far gone to smell
I’m sure the soil remembers
this is not to claim ownership
of a place we are not from
a block they started over in
after the klan burned a cross
in the yard in Wyandotte county
this is not to claim invention
or first rights of bleeding here
but a memory to etch in the foundation
an echo of names in the corridor
easy to hear even from the rooftop
swimming pools and sun decks
it is a place that people with brown skin
bled for over and over and not long ago