Halsey Street

by Naima Coster

she still craved her girl, as unthinkingly as a seabird longs for the sea.

“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?”

“These people are cold, Penelope. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. They think a neighborhood is only about what you can buy—fancy coffee, flowers on the table, a big old house. It’s all just stuff to them, stuff they want, stuff they think they deserve because they can afford it. A neighborhood means more than that. It’s about the people.”

“Of course, you can,” she said. “Cuba is right next door to us, but there’s no reason to buy Cuban cigars when you can buy Dominican cigars for much cheaper. Our cigars are just as good, and you don’t have any trouble bringing them into the US.”

Why steep in someone else’s disappointment? Why linger where you aren’t wanted?

“Daughters get either their courage or their fear from their mothers.”

Her body was the kind that you shape for yourself, not the kind that is the sum of all your accidents, labor, appetites, and genes.