Sunday, January 31, 2021

Walking Shadow

You walk down the street drinking

your $7 cold press juice

on your way to make art.

Planning out the time to let

verses unfold like interlacing sidewalks.


You walk against the tide of frail and elderly:

a faceless other, a brown body in foreign lands.

Reaching the corner there is a trash can

with two gravid women waiting for the light. 

You toss the empty cup of juice.

It does not clang or bang against the can.

The cup makes the usual soft cut of styrofoam

against plastic bag lining. 


One of the women jumps and screams.

Startle reflex makes her snatch her bag

closer to her chest as a shield.

Her companion looks confused about

the momentary commotion,

until you see her come into awakening

about the brown body moving down the street.

The startled woman quickly looks away

as the friend continues to piece together 

the scene they will pretend never happened.


You continue toward your destination,

sure to avoid eye contact

and hoping not to startle old white ladies,

you walk slower and softer until

you are at a standstill.

Until you are a statue.

This is your art for the day:

to exist against their screams,

their startles and clutched purses.


When you arrive in poetry class,

the teacher asks you to read something

and you recite a page about Baltimore

and what it means to be seen as animals

huns, mongrels, assassins, Zulus.

Afterward there is a vacuum that's filled by

a stuttering student: he is nervous that 

the conversation might become political.

That would make him uncomfortable.

You watch as his words tumble

out of his twisted mouth. 


The room recoils back into the mute.

The teacher waits for any other opinion

but the room is voting with their silence:

they want to move on.

The poem read after your's is funny and light

it settles into the void nicely.

The students laugh and breathe again. 

You smile and fold up your paper. ​


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