Thurs­day evening I was dri­ving to Kit’s house to pick up Ellen for a short night before St. Louis. While I was wait­ing at a light in Wilkins­burg, there were some teens walk­ing  the side­walk shout­ing. Groups of teens are loud by default. I ignored them. But they started shout­ing louder and repeat­ing them­selves, so I started lis­ten­ing. “White cracker piece of shit! Hey, white cracker piece of SHIT!” I looked around for their tar­get, think­ing I might see a mug­ging. Then one of them approached my win­dow and start­ing bang­ing his fist. “HEY! Mother fuckin’ white cracker piece … of … SHIT!” Bang bang bang. I looked out at him into his brown eyes, the dark brown frown. Half amused, I leaned to the win­dow and tipped my head, offer­ing a lit­tle smile and a lit­tle wave. Hi formed on my lips as I inno­cently and silently inquired, what can I do for you? The light turned green. I con­tin­ued down the road. I’m white. Peo­ple see me as white. Every­one does. Every­one except white peo­ple. To white peo­ple, or white pee wee soc­cer play­mates, I’m wussy brownie boy. These names are inked in the shades of my skin.

few are here to hear me tear
but bits are near to quell my fear
bits on discs, bits in air,
bits in print are here and there
bits of peo­ple bro­ken down
played and paused in sight and sound
biotic bonds dis­cretely wound
to mimic life, erase my frown
hear me bits—
quell me bits—
help me up from feel­ing down