Monarchy
________For the princes at 2nd Street School
They glare at me
with their nostrils flaring
then avert their gaze
When I don’t wilt.
They puff out boney chests
spread their shoulders
like lizards in the wild
needing to scare off
a would be predator,
but I step closer
let them feel my presence,
let them measure themselves
against all the space I claim.
In the blink of an eye
I tell them I am a man, black,
that I recognize their bullshit,
smelled it on them as soon
as I walked into the room.
There are no other black men
in this space, so they have
filled it with faux braggadocio
fueled by the smell of their own piss
have laid claim to the space
by default.
The teachers, all young and white
and undertrained, fear them,
fear their hair, their clothes, their music,
their shoes, their body language,
their silence, fear any and everything
that smells like confrontation,
simmers like unmedicated-able rebellion
and looks like the 6 o’clock news.
But I am not trading in fear.
I am only afraid
that they have been in captivity
so long they won’t recognize my scent.
I pace back and forth and show my teeth.
I lean in like alpha males do.
I need them to understand
that we are from the same pack
and I am here to show them
what they will lock like.
For ninety minutes
I become the father they never had.
I am the chorus standing behind
their mothers, the ones who are white,
the ones who are not,
insisting that they listen,
to me, the women who gave birth
to them, their teachers, everyone
responsible for their futures,
—lest they have none.
I am the disciplinarian
promising consequences
for their unacceptable behavior,
pushback for their initial disrespect,
Hell to pay for their indifference,
remedies, directions, and road maps,
for their short attention spans,
for their yet unrealized dreams
but only because I love them.
I love their potential.
I love their wide-eyed promise.
I love their well-masked fears.
I say all of this
without ever opening my mouth,
with a gentle but firm hand
on every shoulder
with serious eyes
and a don’t test me smile
every time I arrive any place
with a room full of cubs
where I am the only lion.
The Bison Run with Chango
I see you up there
blocking out the sun,
not quite stampeding
over the mountains,
storming to the coast
on your annual
post winter migration
to your favorite
north atlantic salt lick
temperamental and gray
every where
you used to be
even-keeled and brown
same earth shaking rumble
same herding instincts
still trampling everything
less than you down below
legs tucked tight
as if the parade of you
are sleeping,
vision sheep with horns,
you literally float
across the river___in the sky.
