Shirts & Skins

I was ten when

Mike Smiley, half-Indian,

skinny, brown-skinned,

brought the word jigaboo

to school

like lunch, or the flu,

fed him by his adopted

white father who said

that’s what we called

them then. By noon

it was done—everyone

had a name for what had been

bothering them, some

thing utterly human

as hate. Language feeds

——

on need, however strange

it may be—take

nigger knocking for ringing

the door of some stranger

or friend, then ditching,

watching from the shrubs

after the toll—

I never knew

which of us was supposed

to be the spook,

or just spooked,

how pretending to be no one

was any fun.

I had enough

of that one

——

hugging the roller

rink wall

during Snowball—

the referees, underpaid

zebra-striped employees,

picked with amazing accuracy,

somehow knowing

the exact girl

to play Eve. She’d cruise out

to the latest ballad

& pick her perfect mate

for a slow skate

then a whistle would sound

& like the Farmer

in the Dell, each partner picked

one more. And so on.

Soon the rink an ark

of what everyone thought

or secretly loved—the center

growing bigger

& whiter—

——

Stephanie slowing

unlike my heart, then

picking the fat kid next to me,

his face red as grapes

while she skates

backwards with him away.

Paper covers

rock, shirts

beat skins. Soon enough

when Human Nature

scratched on

I knew to hit

the arcade, getting good

at Defender—

warp speed—

——

mouthing every

word. Sixth grade

you didn’t survive

just endured.

Mostly life was Kill

the Man with the Ball,

or Smear

the Queer—

the football a prayer

clutched against

your chest, outlasting

even this. I was hard

to catch, King

of the Hill

in a town with only one

——

to its name—a sacred place,

some said the Indians said,

& so long as no one built on it

the tornado wouldn’t come.

Of course they put up

a water tower to watch over

cars that parked there, darkened,

steamed—Tell them

that it’s human nature—

& soon after a cyclone arrived

& ate half the town.

Winners talk, losers walk. How

I hoped to outrun those arms,

to leapfrog

all tacklers the way madness skips

——

a generation. Kids

I sat by for years,

or walked back from school with

since we were ten, now

down the wide hall

of high school would call: Minority

go home. I never did ask

Where’s that? Their words

a strong, hot

wind at my back.