Shiny Nickels

Mama ate her collard greens with raw onions, pinching a morsel of greens with sweet cornbread, as juicy pork neckbones lay naked of meat. The sweetness of life, like sweet Kool Aid fills our tummies, while dishes await scrapes of scraps for the family pet; Tuffy. A simpler time, when gas was priceless at $.75 a gallon- and exhaust fumes were free. Corner, Jewish owned stores amass nickels for pounds of salt pork, fat-back and tabs for grits, Wonder Bread and sardines, pennies for cookies, salted peanuts float atop RC Cola bottles, while the neighbor; Miss Sally spits “bacca,” in a old tin can. We sprint as Wilma Rudolph to tab a gallon of milk, after biting a red pepper disguised as an ornament hanging from Daddy’s bush, while I scratch melanin legs infested with sand-sores, from making mud pies. Strolls cross the railroad tracks on Saturdays offer rare window peeks, as the Christmas parade showcases the only ***** High School steppin high, erect and purposed, as integration passes the house. Time creeps unaware of bigotry, racism, poverty and out-voted segregation. Time welcomed newborns of newly born future stars shining dimly while dressed in blackness to affirm cultural change.