We know things
We can’t tell anyone about this, ever.
No.
Not our friends.
Not a single one.
No.
Not our mothers.
Especially, not our mothers.
They said, “Don’t you go in there.”
They said, “You two stay out of there, you hear?”
Yes.
We didn’t listen.
No.
We hold hands a long while.
Time goes by and our ears hear nothing.
We reach through one another’s hair, combing, straightening
with our fingers.
We spit on our palms and wipe stuff from our faces,
clean blood from scratches on our
knuckles, our knees.
Other places we don’t touch.
We have to go now.
Yes.
We stand on shaky legs, pulling at our skirts and blouses.
We stop, close now to the sidewalk--
looking at our faces, our eyes, to see what shows up there.
We might not look any different.
Maybe.
We might look still the same.
Maybe.
We might not have been able to hear our mothers unless we
went in.
Maybe.
We step out of the alley and look around.
Surprise, the world looks still the same.
We look back at the alley, at ourselves.
Our mothers might say: what happened to you?
Maybe.
We will say, we were just playing, and do our shoulders like
we do, lifting their words away.
Yes.
We hold hands all the way to your door, which comes first.
You let go, and slip away inside your house.
I walk two more blocks, still feeling your hand in mine.
