THE EVOLVING CITY Abdul Ali   THERE WERE HOMES I. there were homes hidden on every block: at least one I knew of storied behind fire hydrants that bled mellifluous tap water quenching our colored thirst on brick red hot august sundays or cherry blossom induced naps under plum colored heavens the stairs with her chipped teeth always welcoming our southern footprints the wet washington air pregnant with Negro uplift sentiments II. inside one such home where the brick walls matched worry lines on Papa’s forehead when he’d riff on the stairs blowing donut holes with his cuban cigar or Granddaddy Cornelius who’d hum Precious Lawd as he waited for the milkman or Great Granddaddy Ernest who’d leave notes written on easter sunday handkerchiefs I am not a boy I am not a boy before going to work at union station how the Men in my family found home in the constellated stars that pointed north before greyhound before amtrak and before urban renewal there were Homes     Abdul Ali is a native of New York City studying English and Playwriting at Howard University. He is the current Managing Editor of The Amistad: Howard University’s Online Literary Journal, the 2007 winner of the Margaret Walker Creative Writing Contest in poetry sponsored by the College Language Association, a Zora Neale Hurston/ Richard Wright Writer's Week alumnus, and a 2006 Ronald E. McNair Scholar. He recently read some of his poems at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, in an event sponsored by the French Embassy commemorating the centennial of the birth of Josephine Baker. His work has been published in All That I Am: Black Writers on Finding, Keeping, and Creating Love In Their Lives, edited by Marita Golden; Black Issues Book Review; and he is the author of the column "Pause and Affect" for the online magazine, Scheme.   Published in Volume 8, Number 4, Fall 2007.   To read more by this author: Abdul Ali