Flourish

Carla M. Cherry

photo credit: Carla M. Cherry

Sometimes while I walk down my block
I hear somebody say
Damn.
What is that smell?

Sometimes somebody stepped on
ginkgo biloba seeds--
orange,
round like cherries,
smell like rotten peaches.

Ginkgo biloba
grows full in Northern sun
inhales pollution, exhales fresh air.
Unbothered by winter’s rock salt. 

Ginkgo biloba have
leaves like fans.
And if you're born here, you rep for your city.
Where I’m from, we cross our arms for the BX. 

We love our fireworks in July,
but baby,
they got nothing on the arboreal explosion
of yellow every autumn.

 The ginkgo biloba thrives in tight spaces,
resists disease,
and when it comes to soil type,
it isn’t fussy. 

It’s just like those of us who grew up in
shoulder to shoulder apartment buildings,
shared walls thrumming with congas and R&B base,
who ride racing iron horses over
spit-out sunflower seeds,
coffee cups stashed under the seats,
copies of AM New York left on top,
5 million pairs of hands on poles,
coughing and sneezing outside the elbow,
cigarette stank breath and smoky clothing
wide hips and/or man-spreading, legs tight against yours
cuz God knows we’re all tired and need a seat.
An open book or your phone are the best targets for your eyes,
and if you’re still on after 10 p.m.
you’d better move if you see somebody stumbling
and bent over at the waist.

Urban planners recommend the male ginkgo bilobas
to avoid the slime of stepped-on female seeds. 

But where I live, in the Bronx,
our concrete and streets ain’t just for sneakers.
High heels, open-toed sandals, jellies,
they got you.
Buildings stand up
to the bounce of Big Ma,
Abuela,
aunties
calling us to come back upstairs. 

Clothing racks on Fordham Road crammed
with dresses and leggings
built to hug the brown and black body positive. 

Why should we experience beauty and life without
the mess that comes with being female? 

I once bled onto the seat of a taxicab
when my fibroids were at their worst
and my pad had overflowed
but
you should meet my son,
A 6-foot vessel of
golden brown skin,
light,
compassion,
and
poetry.
He is my sun,
my shade
when I am joyful,
and my shelter on the sad days.

Carla M. Cherry is an English teacher and poet. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Eunoia Review, Random Sample Review, MemoryHouse, Bop Dead City, and Anti-Heroin Chic. She has published four books of poetry through Wasteland Press: Gnat Feathers and Butterfly Wings,Thirty Dollars and a Bowl of Soup, Honeysuckle Me, and These Pearls Are Real. Her fifth book, Stardust and Skin (iiPublishing) is forthcoming. She is an M.F.A. candidate in Creative Writing at the City College of New York. @carlabxpoet1