When I get back to Brooklyn, Maria isn't there.
She's gone upstate, staying with a family,
her mother tells me, that has a pool. Then her mother
puts a plate of food in front of me, tells me
how much she knows I love her rice and chicken.
When Maria returns she is tanned and wearing
a new short set. Everything about her seems different.
I stayed with white people , she tells me. Rich white people.
The air upstate is different. It doesn't smell like anything!
She hands me a piece of bubble gum with BUBBLE Yum
in bright letters.
This is what they chew up there.
The town was called Schenectady.
All the rest of the summer Maria and I buy only
Bubble Yum, blow
bubbles while I make her tell me story after
story about the white family in Schenectady.
They kept saying I was poor and trying to give me stuff,
Maria says. I had to keep telling them it's not poor
where we live.
Next summer, I say. You should just come down south.
It's different there.
And Maria promises she will.
On the sidewalk we draw hopscotch games that we
play using chipped pieces of slate, chalk
Maria & Jackie Best friends Forever wherever
there is smooth stone.
Write it so many times that it's hard to walk
on our side
of the street without looking down
and seeing us there.