Margaret Adams Birth

“Hello,” he says to me so politely, the dreadlocked man
in a Marley T pulling along a tween boy by the hand;

I wonder if he’s the boy’s father,
or perhaps an uncle or older brother;

I wonder if the child hit a classmate with a spitball,
or used a Sharpie to draw pictures on the boys’ bathroom wall,

or got into some other serious kind of trouble
and that’s why the frowning man is dragging him and why he’s not in school

while I’m sitting on the wall of my front terrace garden
deadheading purple and pink and white geraniums.

A Muslim woman crosses the closest street,
black burka covering her from head to feet

except for a slit through which I see her eyes
and the uppermost sliver of cheek that’s plump with a smile;

she’s pushing a stroller holding a babbling toddler boy;
she’s nodding and I can tell he likes her response because I see the joy

on the little face. A young couple comes near; she’s leaning into him, their
hands resting in each other’s blue-jean-clad hip pockets, and I hear

him say to her, “Ah, niña, tú sabes que yo tengo respeto para ti”
(“Oh, little girl, you know that I have respect for you”—see,

they don’t realize the woman working by the azalea knows Spanish when she hears it!);
smiling sweetly, “la niña” replies, “Boy, if you’re a respectful or respectable man . . .
          you’ve got to prove it.”