Toni Asante Lightfoot   14th & U POEM for the gentrified everywhere used to be a place yo momma wouldn't a been caught dead. before then it was a place where jelly roll morton got stabbed. artists lived here turned dumps into trends whore houses into clubs corners once reserved for black men now be dressed by sidewalk cafes owned by men with porcelain hands but for now there's one last bowtied man with a bean pie in one hand pushin a final call with the other   CINCINNATI 2001 riots break out new word for mourners is terrorists cops don't get new titles they take their leave clean their guns welcomed back take aim again   THEY WERE BORN IN 1980 they asked me why is it jazz cuz it is what is was if you know what i mean if you can dig whores spritzing jassmine musicians giving them something to shake it too johns dancing they way outta money between thighs then why not name Negro music the smell of sex on a new orleans night who will listen to two niggahs scream unless it comes packaged as a concert like miles' trumpet yelling to coltrane's sax it's jazz cuz it is what it was the only tunnel out of america   Aimee Jackson Black Spring 1998, 8.5"x 14 3/4" see more of Aimee Jackson's work     HECHT'S AROUND 1965 Crystal was 9 white confirmation dress on her mind she wanted it made like her sisters' from her mother's hands but they had money now wanted to show the church they could afford the store hecht's would let them look hecht's would let them wait in line hecht's would let them buy mommy can i try this on? there's still pain even when the knife is expected the dress came home never leaving the hanger it looked so nice on satin impresses all at home bows are lovely on young ladies all Crystal remembers is it didn't fit   JIM RICE IN BEANTOWN what do you say when your brain will implode if you begin i have always gotten over my good looks made women and white men hunt me like scouts boston was an underground railroad station guess i wasn't supposed to see daylight darkness and silence is what i get and give here dirt roads of home showed me what they would do to a man one they didn't want to need they don't pay me to be nice i hit balls over the green monster and bring my teammates home safe no one spoke to me for weeks but the globe exclaimed attitude when i didn't mumble humble this town smashed in a six year old's head with a coke bottle last week because the law said he had to go to school with his enemy what am i supposed to say he was innocent cute black SIX! no comment? no comment. no one hears me when i speak my accent is deep south carolina might as well be yoruba here what to say when speaking it could get my brains blown out or make me pick up a bat outside the fenway drive my points home is this what you wanted to hear?   Toni Asante Lightfoot spends time traveling to find stories that she can loosely weave poems around. Lightfoot is a graduate of Cave Canem African American Writer's Workshop and a teacher of writing workshops. This whirlwind of a woman is co-founder of the poetry collective the Modern Urban Griots. She is a leader in the national arts organization, Blackout Arts Collective. Published in Volume 2, Number 4, Fall 2001. Read more by this author: Toni Asante Lightfoot: Guest Editor, It's Your Mug Anniversary Issue, Vol. 10:3 (Summer 2009) Toni Asante Lightfoot: Tenth Anniversary Issue