Five two two was the number in the book the number in the book
before the flames took a character’s skin. A friend would look
and ponder the corner of Schwab’s second floor on Beale where
the books of numbers waited for quick or hesitant purchase. The
One with a rooster or a crow or is that what I remember? These
pamphlets promised the triumph of twos and threes and fours
for the Hoodoo men and the Hoodoo women up from the Bottom
where cotton sucked their lungs and broke fingers and skin.
Where every pregnant woman was a dime in the bank and
the men played dreams from the dream book. Quarter Dreams.
Dollar Dreams. Dreams that drugged their souls split open by
a sun so ruthless, it was universally cursed. Pity the true
natives of this land with African blood coursing their veins.
Cursing the dreamed son-king of labor, picking those dimes
Up one by one.
For Toni Morrison
Patricia Spears Jones is an African-American poet and playwright. Her books are The Weather That Kills, from Coffee House Press, Femme du Monde, and most recently Painkiller, both from Tia Chucha Press.
*Photo courtesy of Teresia.