Neighbors saying our face is the same, but I know
Toward my daughter, he lurches like a brother
On the playground. He won’t turn apart from her,
Confounded. I never fought for so much—
My daughter; my son swaggers about her.
They are so small. And I, still, am a young man.
They play. He is not yet incarcerated.
Copyright © 2018 by Jericho Brown. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 14, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.