An ode to 99cent pickled eggs smashed together in a sandwich bag of ranch-flavored sunflower seeds

an ode to pickles and penny candies and pink starbursts whose wrappers littered the ground beneath us as we talked for hours

smacking our lips and cracking our mouths as we smiled and laughed at our own jokes

an ode to the old lady whose blind dog freaked me out every time I came through to buy my pickled eggs and pickles and penny candies

sometimes I wonder if that house is still there

If the old lady’s spirit still sits in front of that tv while the spirit of her blind dog waits for us to come by one last time

an ode to my childhood for I can’t imagine a time when things will ever be as simple as they
were back in the hood

when my only worries were which flavor of sunflower seeds I wanted to suck the life out of
before spitting out what was left of the good ol’ days on to the concrete

an ode to black childhoods

an ode to the streets.