On a neighborhood sidewalk
cracked by finger roots,
I spot you through the MLK Café window
where your feet hook into MLK Way
down the block from Marcus Books.
Have you read any Black
authors this year,
this decade, this century?
You breach MLK Café
to buy your regular black coffee
from a Black woman you’ve seen
in her employee skin
every workday for the past year.
I smile as if I’m your sister
yet you don’t know my name.
Published in Beginnings and Endings: San Joaquin Valley Writers Anthology Series