Wearing History
for a brief moment the two most important questions on my mind are whether or not I can slip into this black man's skin as he plays guitar and how offended will he be if I try, his offense stemming from the lessons he learned playing sandlot football with the other desegregated children referred to only as boy, their status as boys unfortunately doing them no good after school for while they were good they were not old, goodness you see only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, horseshoes like grandpa and daddy used to play in the backyard dripping laughter and sweat onto the red October earth, the end of that month bringing the anticlimax of Fall when the leaves are already done swaying and falling and shiver limply along the ground, limping the way daddy once did after his left knee was broken by a bat-wielding lily white ghost outside the flaming First Baptist on Cotton Street, cotton like his shirt was made of, so soft and refreshing to hide in and cry against the drenched barrel chest
"Wearing History" first appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review #22
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