Bird Ave

by Lorna Dee Cervantes

life on Bird
was tough
Cat-eyes
me and Mousie
estrolándose y
marchando
conmissions
man I can't get no
satisfaction
in and out las
baby baby baby
oooo OOO oooo
baby baby
hits all summer

we wore tease
tight skirts
tough teased hair
talked rough rhymes
developed una
re-puta-ción
for the toughest burns
on Horseshoe

tough
from Memorial Day
to our Labor Day
weekend
we had the key
to the drug locker
of our own developing
temples
highest lites in the district
favors all over town
and we owed
nobody shit

Cat-eyes was beautiful
Mouse made up wizard holds
nobody over 4'11" could contain her
except me—the connection
we always had it
we scored
when we wanted
plus we were ethical

essssahhh Mouse goes
that first initiation
you gotta understand
about Ethics
she had it then
all total control
banging my head on
the blacktop for effect
you flacafeaface
got Ethics
and she gave me
one of those mouse
grins and made
lemon crap
out of my cheeks
before letting me up
all righteous rage

sin class ni pomp
and circumstance
we were better
than military
beauty brains & brass
man
we were the trinity
that invented it
the model rambos
I coulda killed her
easy
she knew it
we'd kill it
in ourselves
eventually

we knew it all
the code and the symbology
the poetics and the order
of place and gesture
we were honed for the killing
primed for the time
our ganga de camelias
y rosarias would burst
we tended that bust
cultivated it
blistered it
hitched ourselves
up to its hearse
and made up Bird
on the reins
of some wild ride
from the tracks to
Willow Glen and back
we were running
our own private
miracle mile
man
it was tough
with Cat-eyes
on the corner
buttering 'em up
all stupid and blind
me and mouse
always ready
to take advantage
of a relevant situation

Don't Fuck With Us
our motto
We're Here to Serve
the ruse
Listen Watch
Be Silent
was the Conquest's
hidden code

man
it was tough
to know it all
and we haven't
learned anything
since

1985