With These Four: Keep me in Mind by Atiya Imani - HTML preview

ORIGIN

I like to walk down beautiful streets

paved with people and poems disguised as trees

wind that blows--not hard enough to blow up your dress--hard enough to guide your peripheral into a new vision

ribboned in streets where balancing the sun took place on bare brown hands--I like the life I can touch--eyes to see out of--if only but so far--and feet to trust -- life where music answers questions by way of birds --I like streets that sound like purple--that looks like a marching band of violins

--it’s no coincidence that the people and the trees are the same thing--sturdy and unmovable as long as there’s some water underneath--it’s no coincidence that the sky and the water are the same place--wide and nurturing--robust like a southern grandmother with the girth of her grown children wrapped around her hips

--I like life on beautiful streets where its frigid and snowing--life on streets where black boys beat on paint buckets--where Mexican women sell ice cream and corn-- I like to walk down street that remind me of God--I like being able to choose who gets the praise--faceless voices; through crowds in conversation have protected me on my walk-- I like watching lovers on beautiful streets take breaks from holding hands to kiss each other--quickly wiping their sweaty hands on their left and right pockets