Memories of Magic

A white boy moved to Harlem

Found a cold water flat

On the fourth floor length

Of a 6 story tenement

Harlem was black and scary

Everyone agreed so

Harlem was dirty and far

From the village of genteels

To cross into Brooklyn

Was to give up, to submit

To accept that New York

Wouldn't really have him.

After he proved to himself

That 212 was not impenetrable

He found his lot in Brooklyn

Crown Heights, Franklin Ave.

St. Francis Place house

Sublet of a room from which

I could hear the machinery

Of displaced darkness at night

There were other places

And the Shangri-La that

Briefly was 147^th Street

But Crown Heights bore me.