Salaam Green | Ms. June’s 2nd Avenue Resistance

Salaam Green: Master Healer, Born and Breed in the Black Belt of Alabama. M.S. Early Childhood Education. Southern Essayist/Freelance Writer and Poet, founder of Literary Healing Arts & Red Couch Writers, Rural Organizer with Black Belt Citizens, University of Alabama at Birmingham Arts in Medicine Artist in Resident for Creative Writing and Poetry and a Deep South Storyteller for Creatively Aging, 2016 Poet Laureate for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 2018 Tedx Birmingham Speaker.

Salaam Green's Website.

Special Feature:
100 Thousand Poets for Change — Birmingham
Edited by Ashley M. Jones, Laura Secord, and Alina Stefanescu

Salaam Green

Ms. June’s 2nd Avenue Resistance

There is one single purple flower creeping from the sidewalk in front of Ms. June’s house on 2nd Avenue. The flower grows in the dark. Ms. June stands on the edge of her white, wooden triangular porch with tight, mauve slippers on her large fee. She tiptoes, waving her finger in the dense air through which cars speed — purple flower withstanding the wind. Ms. June sleeps under a dirty coolant fan that blows lukewarm heat in the winter. One insecure strand of her hair falls loose behind the run down porch, greasy and psychedelic, disappearing in the dark. Artists, picture takers, and tourists walk in and out of Ms. June’s house with dirty sandals and hurry-up feet. Many, many visitors partake in acrimonious wine, and dine on warm biscuits and jalapeño jam while Ms. June keeps a close watch on her purple flower. The sidewalk is busy, and a singular stem with happy leaves marks the spot of Ms. June’s blessed resistance.

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