to the notebook kid

yo chocolate milk for breakfast kid.

one leg of your sweatpants rolled up

scrounging at the bottom of your mama’s purse

for bus fare and gum

pen broke and you got ink on your thumb kid

what’s good, hot on the cement kid

White Castle kid

tongue stained purple

cussin on the court

till your little brother shows up

with half a candy bar kid

got that good B in science kid

you earned it kid

etch your name in a tree

hug your granny on her birthday

think of Alaska when they shootin

curled-up dreams of salmon

safety

tundra

the farthest away place you ever saw in a book

polar bears your new chess partners

pickax in the ice

Northern Lights kid

keep your notebook where your cousins won’t find it.

leave it on my desk if you want

shuffle under carbon paper

and a stamp that screams late

yellow and red to draw the eye from the ocean

you keep hidden in a jacked-up five star.

your mama thought there was a secret in there

thought they would laugh

but that ain’t it.

it’s that flows and flows and flows

and lines like those rip-roaring

bits you got

bars till the end of time

you could rap like

helium bout to spring

all of it

down to you

none left in the sun — fuelless

while the last light pushes from your belly

climbing your ribs

and you laugh into the microphone 

and who is ready for that?

Eve L. Ewing

Eve Ewing is a poet and sociologist of education. She earned a BA from the University of Chicago, an MAT from Dominican University, and an MEd and PhD from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Her first collection of poetry, essays, and visual art, Electric Arches, was published by Haymarket Books in fall 2017. 

For ten years, Ewing has been an educator in both traditional and community-based settings, including Chicago Public Schools, After School Matters, Harvard University, and Wellesley College. She is an editor and staff writer for the website Seven Scribes. She also co-directs Crescendo Literary, a partnership that develops community-engaged arts events and educational resources. Eve is also one-half of the writing collective Echo Hotel, with Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib. 

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Miami

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june 8, the smiley barista remembers my name