This city is an elder.

Her skin is cracked with crows’ feet,
her teeth are turning brown,
the vibrato in her voice
croaks out
a heavy velvet sound.

She still wears rusted brick,
colonial lace around her collar,
her nails are painted murals bright
to add a light
to squalor.

Her hair: a leafy afro
sprouting ringlets from her brain,
her veins the winding highways stained with
drip tattoos of dirt and rain.

I love to watch her wrinkle,
I love to watch her grey.
Unlike those teenage glamour queens,
she has very much more
to say.

Carlyn Flint is a poet and playwright originally from Baltimore, Maryland who now teaches creative expression at a Title 1 elementary school in North Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work with children informs her writing and fuels her to be socially conscious with whatever she creates.