Where I’m From by Adanze Asante

I’m from Bronx River Projects

 Spades versus Apaches gangs pop locking to Africa Bambaataa’s Wheels of Steel

 B-Boys and B-Girls’ heads spinning on cardboard

 Donde’s graffiti cartoons splayed on Bronx-bound trains

I’m from I’ll kill you if you step on my kicks

 dodging bullets with no name

 Nasty Nancy’s Just say No

 Extended Relatives falling to Yes

I’m from a home that served as a refuge, where an Angela-Davis-Fro Mom schooled her only child that we came before Columbus,

Fried-chicken-potato-salad-collard-green dinners and

 Musical notes of Barry White, Stevie Wonder, Isley Brothers, Chaka Khan, Fleetwood Mac, John Coltrane, Bob Marley and more spilled into hallways and neighbors’ dreams

I’m from a grandmother who never had children that wielded wisdom from blue skies

 A screaming preacher spitting musical psalms

 Swinging southern poplar trees

 Cotton, cucumber, and tobacco plants

I’m from the Harlem Renaissance I am a Man and Sojourner’s Truth Ain’t I A Woman?

 Langston Neale and Zora Hughes

 La Roque Bey’s African Dance Center: Funga Alafia Ashay Ashay!

 Malcolm X’s chickens come home to roost

 Bean pies and fish fry Fridays

I’m from Andromeda and Earthsea

 Dinosaurs and soaring birds

 Whales and supernovas