you assured me, in a glut of words,
that our neighborhood had community.
the scent of grilling sirloin from a barbeque
we never ate from;
fleeting glimpses of a pool
we were never invited to swim in.
deluded wraiths of forms, setting predictable norms:
“this house protected by smith and wesson.”
fences taller than professional b-ball players
ringing pesticidic parcels of stolen land.
if there were natives once, they are better off extinct
than living here,
is an easy conclusion to draw; but we resisted it, in order to
get up way too early brew very black coffee
chomp cereal that was sugary
dress in stale uniforms get newspaper
from yard try really really hard
to think the next day would be different,
or at least half-fulfilling.
over time, our little corner
that was like any other corner of its kind
got darker. affirmatively acting, upwardly mobile,
iron chains replaced by starched collars
that hugged the neck
like a new lover’s embrace.
no cookies were baked, nor introductions offered,
quite a battle
to acknowledge how truly racist we were.
mr. jackson's furrowed delta blues, kayjay's
unlaceable high-top shoes, mrs. jackson's
cayenne-blasted stews.
another gangland killing
at the start of nightly news.
our cruel island of vanilla
needed the sky's broad horizon
for a mirror. tidbits of cumulus
would accumulate our primitive fears,
return them in showers of judgmental jeers.
the jackson house was flooded by our understated guilt.
“don't play with him,” my mother
would needlessly exhort,
for i already knew my place.
kayjay's electrifying trot must right away
be forgot, his titanic overtures
just to shoot a few hoops
and eat a couple cold scoops
discarded like an impossible temptation.
our neighborhood could have been the setting
for a showdown with irrational frustration
but we never rose to the challenge
with trembling hesitation, to defy
our own slavish psychological decimation.
it was quite a battle
to acknowledge how truly racist we were
how being racist must be
the pulse of the nation.
