Slur Slang Slam

(old poem I found in an old laptop)

What’s up faggot?

I untangled my headphone cords

Walking to the bus stop,

Professional New Yorker.

Unflinching precision

As my fingers unspooled knots.

Gathering inside a question.

Looking right nor left,

I couldn’t tell whether he was

On the phone, speaking to a friend,

Or talking to me. But to look up

Is to acknowledge.

Any schoolyard bully knows

That trick. I continued to gather

The string of cord in my left hand

Untangling dangling white

Lines as I caught him looking

Out on the sidewalk. Either toward

Me or the guy behind me,

Both of us rushing past him

Past the slur sent to

Trigger some response.

He mumbled something

I slowed down, do I dare

Turn? The other pedestrian

Sped past me, his headphones

Firmly entrenched and blasting

Loud hideous chaos

Into the outerspace of Queens.

There is a place where this word lives.

I don’t live there, but I visit.

This neighborhood of niggers, faggots, spics,

Whops, degos, chinks, Curry heads,

Rain dancers, butt-scratching Africans

Dijibouti-looking, Soup-bowl African black,

The sun never comes round these parts

Derogatory slurs and arrows.

The sun doesn’t live here.

An experiment percolated in my head and I thought

What if this is all a game?