{"id":1729,"date":"2019-12-03T01:18:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T01:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=1729"},"modified":"2019-12-02T00:36:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T00:36:43","slug":"harlem-1994-2004-by-shaina-phenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2019\/12\/03\/harlem-1994-2004-by-shaina-phenix\/","title":{"rendered":"Harlem 1994-2004 by Shaina Phenix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Harlem, does it fester like a sore or sugar over like a syrupy sweet?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday through Friday is Harlem after Langston Hughes. A school teacher
questions, what happens to a dream deferred?<\/em> We quick \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0rising suns and gap
teeth begging for dictionaries. There are bones fading in the cement
on Lenox Avenue. We are stray bullet bodies praying the safe
arrival of dream despite our sable skins. Us girls fall in love <\/p>\n\n\n\n

with the first woman since our mamas and argue about whether
it is pronounced An-jill-o<\/em> or On-ja-loo<\/em>, who laugh like she got gold
mines diggin\u2019 in her backyard.<\/em> We are spread chests and small hips, we think us
women for the first time. Phenomenal <\/em>in peter pan collars and
pleated skirts, milk mouths, and box braids. Saturday night is 101 West <\/p>\n\n\n\n

131st Street, my mother smells of sweetened rum, spritz, maryjane, and
lavender perfume. Us with bellies full of oodles of noodles and oil-damp
pork chops. Lil Kim reminds the women         not to worry
about a man, cause he      aint worried          about them. The women say
amen, stomp their heels into the floor, and squat. Thighs gaping, and tongues hang<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from the painted lips. They rap as if Kim be kin or a god. When they leave,
pile into taxi cabs for the club. Us girls are in the mirrors\u2014small
thighs gaping and kool aid tongues hang from our lips, rapping or praying.
Sunday morning is Antioch Baptist Church and Sarah is
a testimony-throat, she a biscuit and molasses ballad. Lord do it <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

for me<\/em> – then, a riot of black hands wind amongst the stained glass windows.
You’ve read the story about the blind man and one day he heard Jesus
was passing by. He said, lay your hand on me.<\/em> The holy spirit is
a plague. Here, a collection plate of praise, prophetic patois heavy
feet on blood themed rugs and we restart. Bullet bodies budding allay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaina Phenix is a poet, educator, and Virginia Tech MFA poetry candidate from Harlem, New York. Before pursuing her MFA she taught middle and high school humanities for two years. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harlem, does it fester like a sore or sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Monday through Friday is Harlem after Langston Hughes. A school teacher questions, what happens to a dream deferred? We quick \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0rising suns and gap teeth begging for dictionaries. There are bones fading in the cement on Lenox Avenue. We are stray … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-rT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1753,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions\/1753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}