Black Virgin Mountain.
                                               Yeah, gore, & all
the damn vagaries
                                   of war locked inside a song.
Yeah, sometimes one thing
                                                  leads to another
rainbow, a choker of hippie beads,
                                                                & I can’t
stop hearing Dad’s voice
                                             almost going there
on “Nature Boy,” no struggle
                                                      trying to hide
behind his eyes. He almost made it,
                                                                 but didn’t
know how to leave dirt on the roots.
                                                                  Maybe this
is why I must keep hurt alive,
                                                       limping inside
some bamboo cage.

*
Lately, I feel how worlds shift.
                                                          I don’t know
how they slip the yoke,
                                               but three nights ago
these sappers broke through
                                                     concertina wire,
their naked bodies greased,
                                                  as they ran & slung
wild satchel charges.
                                   I was tied up in a hut
of clay & thatch, & a nameless
                                                       army nurse
sat in a corner, sizing me up,
                                                    camouflaged
in blackface, & she wore
                                            next to nothing.
I heard a tap on the other side
                                                        of the wall,
sounding a message in code,
                                                    & the nurse Lt.
stood up, & said, that’s John.

 *
What’s going on here,
                                               huh? I mean, look,
 the Navy pilot never played
                                                   blind czar of Id
ransacking the rosebushes
                                                  on a false trail,
& we need him at our backs.
                                                         What hellhole
do heel spurs rise from? 
                                            Pardon my brogue.
All summer the devil
                                    was sharping his blade
on cold black whetstone,
                                             & now this hard rain
falling inside, turning life
                                              into gray moss,
but I still love my jackfruit.  
                                                      
*
Sometimes I hear Roberta
                                                saying, Lawd,
come here, Boy,
                            & let us talk glory days.
We sit there, ruminating,
                                              wondering why
police would shoot
                                  unarmed Black folks,
gazing at our faces
                                   in the water, as the cork
bobs, & nylon line tightens,
                                                  my bone hook
in the throat of a gold-belly
                                                  perch big as two
hands, & I feel the river
                                           growing angry,
ready to leap the bank,
                                           ready to rampage
one hundred years in one
                                                   night, red
dusk to dawn’s new season.

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,”
said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let's call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to 
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just 
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I 
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

The instructor said,

    Go home and write
    a page tonight.
    And let that page come out of you—
    Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records—Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?

Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you're older—and white—
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.