Three teenage boys with dark skin sit on cracked beige steps laughing in front of their apartment buildings
An older woman in a light blue dress and matching headscarf sits in a folding chair
outside a ninety-nine cent store and braiding shop

She adjusts her wax fabric dress, with hands adorned with dark henna tattoos
when a possible customer walks by
Brisk, cold air carries the sound of the Wolof language as calm chatter
throughout 116th street in Harlem

She yells, “Ready Miss?” To any woman with dusty brown skin
That passes by her quickly
Cracked hands holding out a thin business card
“Aïssatou’s African Hair Braiding”

We know her and we know her story
Beginning her day with whispered prayers
In the Middle, she braids, twists with shoulders hunched and an aching neck
And Ends her day with strained wrists, stirring the family dinner in a pot

In the shop, she sits among a mountain
Packets of braiding hair and conditioner
The broken heater at the corner taunts her of
The stifling heat of Senegal she misses so much

We know her and we know her story
The one she tells us when we complain about America
The one she tells herself when she misses family or an ancient village
she left behind for a better life

“There was an undocumented man a few years ago; An African
He lived in the Bronx, not far from the Yankee stadium
Everyday, for years and years he would pray, beg to God
To get his papers to go home, His Green Card

One day at work though, his home caught on fire
His wife called him as the flames burned
Told him that her and their kids, there was no way out
When he made it home, there was nothing left but gray smoke

His neighborhood raised money for him
And they gave him his papers to bury his family back home
We all pray for our papers, we all beg to see our families but he didn’t know his documents
Would be because of what happened, right?”

She tells this story as her feet burn from the eight hours of standing
And when her spine feels twisted and mangled
Reaching around an afro to braid into a cornrow
She tells this story when her fingers remain stiff, telling her they cannot go on

She tells this story when her Immigration lawyer tells her
To be please be patient
And when her sisters call her across the Atlantic
Asking “when will you come home?”

She tells me this story regularly, my mom
Perhaps she believes I forgot,
Most of all though, she tells it to herself
So she can wake up tomorrow, ready to work again