Bronx Teacher 2010

153 Street Station is clean Down sturdy metal steps through old Yankee Stadium field where Ruth and Gehrig ran. Pungent in the nostrils piss follows me Up the hill where supers sweep trash from yesterday’s deals and conferences Broom bucket hose black bags. Mothers pull young children to school Their Diego Rivera faces Chisled by want from old world stone Set in the new world promise. Adamantine trek no stopping Climbing past the fortress courthouse Crowded Social Service building # 145 (meth clinic) Halal vendors hawking pastries A lady with a cell to her ear in the lime green tracksuit shouts: “What the **** is he to me? If I can do what he do why do I need him to do what he do?” Two young Black men in braids, swaying gold, Pants down low wide-striding in step as they go, “ Nigga says I got to stand a long time in that line. Whose line? That’s his line not my line. I ain’t standin’ in no long line”. “Word”. Crossing to the bodega on Morris Ave where mi amor Juana takes my dollar twenty five for the Schweppes Lemon-Lime brushing by the bacon-egg-and-cheese-kids pigeons pecking dirt Up three flights to room 322 where Students ask for pencils while they tinker with the hardware on the windows.