Ferguson, no one ever heard of you.
Unless they lived in Florissant, or Cool Valley,
we said “St. Louis” when we went away because
you were obscure, tucked in leafy green,
lost to humidity.
Sure, we could count on things—
farmer Al in baggy overalls, boxing tomatoes,
patient books lined at the library,
Hermit Lady sunken into tilting house.
Catholic pal said I could not step into his church
to see the painted statues, God would not approve,
I was not baptized, a drifter among
Ferguson’s ditches and trees.
We might have guessed your coming troubles,
white teacher reading Langston with a
throaty catch in her voice. The invisible line,
Kinloch on the other side. See that word? Kin in it.
Made no sense to kids. Only grown-ups saw the line.
We loved your fragrances and musky soil—
everyone so poor a dime or quarter could change a day,
but filled with longing—how to spend our bounty?
My Arab daddy always wanted to know more.
Evenings we watered the grass, the trees.
Driving slowly around “the other side,”
he waved at everyone, people called him reckless,
only Arab in town got away with curiosity.
Something had to be better than
the separations humans make—
at four, I am climbing steep stairs
of the house next door.
If I sit quietly, the teenager who lives inside
will emerge and brush my hair.
She presses hard, down to the scalp.
I belong to her too.
