Stoop Sermons at Midnight

Listen—
the block keeps its hymns in the cracks of the sidewalk,
the mortar where babies' names were whispered like prayers.
We pass them hand to hand, cigarette ember to porch light,
tell the wind our business in the language of boiled greens and doo-wop.
Mama's radio still knows how to coax a sunrise out of rusted radiators,
she hums gospel into the kettle so the steam wakes our grandmama's hands.

We learned scripture from storefront lights, from the way the cat sleeps flat on warm vinyl,
from the barber who slides a story between fades, says, "Boy, tie your dreams to a careful knot."
The corner store owes us sugar and time—old men play checkers like they're moving kings across a chessboard of rent notices,
and children race the ice cream truck, catching sound like salvation.
We baptize our sorrow in the pool of dawn, keep each other afloat with jokes and Tupperware casseroles,
we map our freedom in subway chalk and on the back of a takeout menu.

Cops' sirens carve the night into quick breaths; we count them like rosary beads,
but still—somebody's laugh undoes the tightness, a baby yawns and the whole block exhales.
We know how to hold a funeral for a promise and still coax a Sunday out of Monday,
how to make a feast from two cans and a prayer.
Our poets rhyme with streetlights, we write in the margins of unpaid bills,
we keep archives in dented lunchboxes and the corners of our jaws where laughter refuses to be quiet.

Say the names of the ones who taught us to survive: Auntie with the ironed skirts,
Brother with the mixtapes, Sister who learned to move like a promise—she teaches us how to stand.
We stitch murals with spray paint prayers on plywood altars, paint the city with songs so predators can't find the soft spots.
Here, love is not polite—it's practical, it grip-hugs you through the cold, it borrows coats and radios.
We are less than what the paper prints and more than the block reports—
we are alveoli of a city, breathing in each other's smoke and exhale.

Keep your ears open: the night sermon is on every stoop, every bench—
we preach survival, we preach slow joy, we preach the stubborn gospel of staying.
Amen is a mouthful of fried fish and leftover cornbread, and we sing it loud enough to make heaven check its windows.