Halsey Street

by Naima Coster

The pink cotton of her shirt stuck to her skin, and she felt the ache in her calves, the heaviness of her muscles. Her run had done exactly what she intended it to do: she had lost her self and existed nowhere outside of her body. She was only the throbbing expansion of her chest, the pain in her joints, the sweat coursing down her forehead, the back of her neck, her thighs.

It wasn’t long before the girls started to keep their distance, and the boys, too, except for a few, who watched her with interest from afar, as if her hoop earrings, thighs, and mass of curls were a statement rather than simply who she was.

“It’s a shame that making room for white folks mean the rest of us have to go. But it’s always been that way, hasn’t it?”

“Penelope’s my granddaughter. If she wants to draw, I want to see her drawings. If she decides to be a fisherman, I want to see her fish.”