I remember a flowered bed spread
tucked neatly around a fold out sofa
a polyester garden of wilted pansies
likely chosen to match the fading wallpaper
a vain attempt I’m sure,
to bring the outside in
as they say in all the magazines.

I remember a console sitting over in the corner
as old and tired as the fading wallpaper
but Sammy Davis Jr. would sing right to me-
Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes.

Such high fidelity!
I’d twirl and twirl
going around with the record
catching glimpses of pansies
from the corner of my eye.

I could not have been more than three or four
too young to understand the meaning of anything:
our two-room apartment down a long dark hallway
first floor back behind the colored hotel
my parents sleeping under a polyester garden
on a sofa that folded out
into a room meant for living.

I was much too young and didn’t understand
that the voice I heard
the man crooning in the console
was a one-eyed negro singing for his supper
and the colored hotel was named for Crispus Attucks
  a runaway slave, and the first man to die
  for the America dream.

How could I know as I twirled and twirled
around in that room
that my mother was dreaming on the fold out sofa
of a house with a yard full of real pansies blooming
and a bedroom fit for a proper lady.
What did I know?
I was just a little girl
who could feel the music
and it felt like freedom.