The love that I’m able to possess in the streets was that agape love that my Mom Dukes showed to me. That woman can take a pot of chicken and rice and feed a whole block, even in and out of jail with me when I was on lock. Remembering having old-fashioned card parties to make the rent due, taking care of a family of 20 with the scraps that were given to you. Those nights of feeding my belly first before she fed hers. She even changed her life and attended Kaiser Permanente and became a nurse.
It’s not an easy job being a mother with no dad around, but Ernestine Brock did it and is still doing it hands down. So take this poetic fl ower and give my mama her rose while she can smell it. Mama, I want to make you proud while you can still inhale it.
