(1961)
From that first morning in the hall
outside homeroom hour
John J and I joked together, shot pool,
studied in the library, ran laps together
around the practice field
He clasped my tiny head in his huge black hand
if I smiled smugly at A+ papers,
squashed me to linoleum to keep me in my place;
I mocked him when he laughed mouth full
of that day’s sandwhich,
splattered his opinions into the air,
and that’s the way we made it through
the foolishness of the Fifties
The remains of those hundreds of days
when the only excitement was a fire drill
grin out at me from a stamp sized square
in our high school yearbook,
one of a few dark faces in a class of eighty,
lit with a light that made hope seem dull
The day before a senior party in the suburbs
I found him sobbing on the school’s front steps,
omitted from the invitation list
for fear the neighbors would complain
Even as I swore again and again,
“John, I’m not going without you,”
he kept shoving me away with his bare elbow,
left without me into the din of the riotous streets