Anne Elliott Cherie Watson was not in attendance, she who I thought was queen. I dreaded her scowling face in the audience, then realized, with a hard blue feeling, that I missed her, that without her scowl the room was not complete. Years later, after the schools quit busing and Slumurbia got gentrified and Kunta Kinte became somebody’s punch line, that blue feeling sticks with me. That, and the cadence. I’ll never lose the cadence—hard to learn, hard to unlearn—the hollow ring of my hand slapping skin.
Crab Orchard Review
u 65