Three Black Girls

I’m watching birds from my glass-enclosed front porch on a late June afternoon, binoculars and tea on the table before me, when here come three Black girls, about 13 or so. They’re walking in the middle of the street, talking all at once, loud and fast, laughing, shoving and clutching one another, enjoying their lives and their lives-that-could-be, the possibilities that are floating like colorful soap-bubbles all around them, just out of reach.

The sight of them reminds me so much of myself at 13 that my heart is pierced and love for them leaks out of my eyes. When you’re 13 and school’s out for the year, the whole city lies before you: new neighborhoods to be explored, new people to meet, new teachers to love or hate, new opinions and personalities to try out, new games to play, new things to learn -- a whole new person to become, with new strengths and skills to be famous for. The sentences you’ve never said or written before; the jokes you’ve yet to tell! There are new friends to make and new enemies to imagine. You’re becoming you; you’re making yourself up and writing your own story. Every moment is an adventure.

Now the girls are drawing very near to my house. One of them, trailing a bit behind the others, surprises me by pausing to yank from my front garden a tall, perfect coreopsis, sun-yellow petals circling its cinnamon-red center. I lower my binoculars, grab my gardening shears and rise, angling to the door so I can call to her to wait, and then quickly pick an armful of flowers as a way of saying, Here, these are for you; welcome to my block; welcome to your lives.

From the corner of her eye, she sees an old white lady with long scissors, coming for her! Because of the stolen flower! She dashes off like a star sprinter, yelling to her friends, “Run! Run!” They all look back and see me outside now, confused at the top of my steps, binoculars still hanging from my neck and a metal thing in my hand. Maybe it’s a gun! They take off, all yelling, “Run! Run!” The neighbors’ dogs start barking, and the girls dart diagonally across the street: “Hurry up! Quick! Go! Go! Go!”

They never slow down. They disappear around the corner, and that’s the last I see of them.

What an adventure they’ve had! A whole exciting story, waiting to be told, about how they barely escaped with their lives from Bayview Terrace! And the lady with the gun who sent her dogs after us, because of the flower!

But if you’re reading this, girls, please know that I, alone again on my porch with my tea and memories, am sending all three of you a prayer for lives filled with joy, flowers, and many exciting adventures.

I still have plenty of coreopsis out front, if you want some.