 You know, it is an honor to hear the writing of Wanda Stewart, who asked, Can Navy Beans Fear a Takeover by the Black Eyed Pea? It's beautiful, ma'am. Beautiful. And this collection has so much grace and so much beauty, and I'm just really honored and thankful to be a part of it. Barbecue and cornbread and greens made by black hands. Adobo and rice eaten with thick brown fingers. A handwritten love note with a number two pencil. A street sax blowing colors across the sky. Tortillas and rice and beans and abuelitas voices rising through rooftops. Murals on our skin. Wet with our stories, our lives, our revolution. Paleteros pushing cool, cool, cool flavors that paint the tongue, a picture of community, finger-painted portraits of our dreams. Grandpa with a wrinkled racing form. Transistor radio broadcasting voices of spirits dancing, splashing like flowers in the throats of babies. Wrinkled photos and longhand notes written illegibly legible on the palm lines of leaves. A belly full of pork noodle soup. A belly full of udon. Familiar faces on Frisco streets. Brother Terry out on the corner of Seventh selling slow jam CDs. Delphonics. Isley Brothers. The Dramatics. I wanna go outside. In the... May sound crazy, but I wanna go outside. Sister Nella planting collard greens and kale and everything that is good. Her brown Filipino hands offering her gifts from the soil in the tenderloin. Stories written in Russian rye bread. Rice noodles whipping around block after block of the tenderloin. Dreams fermenting on the corner of Turk and Larkin. Black voices that never die. Samoan church food passed from hand to hand, elder to child, heart to heart. Sacks filled with Chinese vegetables. Fish eyes looking through tanks as rivers flow down the Chinatown streets. My grandmother's cane that kept our unstable world stable as she walked to and from St. Patrick's church on Mission Street. Mission Street palm trees that tell us home isn't too far and can be heard in the conga drum that dreams of freedom from the pawn shop. And fog horns that moan, moan, moan wetness as the sun breaks through for the first time over and over again in my city, in our city.