Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson Page B

commercial came on TV. It was this white lady making a nice dinner for her husband. She made him some baked chicken with potatoes and gravy and some kind of greens—not collards, but they still looked real good. Everything looked so delicious, I just wanted to reach into that television and snatch a plate for myself. He gave her a kiss and then a voice came on saying He’ll love you for it and then the commercial went off.
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    I sat on Miss Edna’s scratchy couch wondering if that man and woman really ate that food or just threw it all away.
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    Now Ms. Marcus wants to know why I wrote that the lady is white and I say because it’s true. And Ms. Marcus says Lonnie, what does race have to do with it, forgetting that she asked us to use lots of details when we wrote. Forgetting that whole long talk she gave yesterday about the importance of description! I don’t say anything back to her, just look down at my arm. It’s dark brown and there’s a scab by my wrist that I don’t pick at if I remember not to. I look at my knuckles. They’re real dark too.
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    Outside it’s starting to rain and the way the rain comes down—tap, tapping against the window—gets me to thinking. Ms. Marcus don’t understand some things even though she’s my favorite teacher in the world. Things like my brown, brown arm. And the white lady and man with all that good food to throw away. How if you turn on your TV, that’s what you see—people with lots and lots of stuff not having to sit on scratchy couches in Miss Edna’s house. And the true fact is alotta those people are white. Maybe it’s that if you’re white you can’t see all the whiteness around you.

HAIKU
    Today’s a bad day
Is that haiku? Do I look
like I even care?

GROUP HOME BEFORE MISS EDNA’S HOUSE
    The monsters that come at night don’t
breathe fire, have two heads or long claws.
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    The monsters that come at night don’t
come bloody and half-dead and calling your name.
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    They come looking like regular boys
going through your drawers and pockets saying
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    You better not tell Counselor else I’ll beat you down.
The monsters that come at night snatch
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the covers off your bed, take your
pillow and in the morning
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steal your bacon when the cook’s back is turned
call themselves The Throwaway Boys, say
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    You one of us now.
When the relatives stop coming
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    When you don’t know where your sister is anymore
When every sign around you says
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    Group Home Rules: Don’t
do this and don’t do that
    until it sinks in one rainy Saturday afternoon
while you’re sitting at the Group Home window
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reading a beat-up Group Home book,
wearing a Group Home hand-me-down shirt
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hearing all the Group Home loudness, that
you are a Throwaway Boy.
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    And the news just sits in your stomach
hard and heavy as Group Home food.

HALLOWEEN POEM
    It’s Halloween
The first-graders put pumpkin pictures and ghost
drawings all up and down the hallways.
We don’t do none of that in fifth grade.
We don’t want to.
I mean, we’re not supposed to want to.
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    But sometimes
I do.
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    There’s these two guys I know who sometimes snatch
little kids’ trick-or-treat bags. That ain’t right.
Once when I was a little kid
this big teenager guy snatched mine.
If I’d a had a big brother,
he would’ve beat the guy down.
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    But I
don’t.

PARENTS POEM
    When people ask how, I say
a fire took them.
And then they look at me like
I’m the most pitiful thing in the world.
So sometimes I just shrug and say
They just died, that’s all.
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    A fire took their bodies.
That’s all.
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    I can still feel their voices and hugs and laughing.
Sometimes.
Sometimes I can hear my daddy
calling my name.
Lonnie sometimes.
And sometimes Locomotion
come on over here a minute.
I want to show you