ISSUE: Spring 2019
Everywhere I look I see him,
I have a right to fear for him,
though I have no right to claim his color.
His blackness is his to own and what will
my mouth say of that sweetness.
Am I colorless worn like a veil, invisible
but present. He is a word grown upright
and some claim he is journalism, media
around me, so much light filtered through,
so much video of him, I shut it out,
the body shot through and I will not let
him out the door. Sideways, I view
a lens. If you could see the green field,
the cows with their maternal gazes, instinct
at their hooves, leaning into calves, edging in.
They come closer. When there is no more color,
I turn an old-fashioned knob of the TV,
black-and-white frames, where I view a hose
releasing water, dogs bark at the leash of time.
My son turns off the television believing it’s an ancient
toy. He sits on my lap and we lean against a wall,
he and I in the room. We watch the door.
