on baldwin earlier.

i'm going to continue in a ramble here


this is just an '^' tho





(if there is a thing such as color, strip it from me


take it by the finger, the pinkie

and pull at the corner


peel away time-

anger, weather beaten


my face is a shack

behind a plantation)




"mister, do you have a nickel?"


her skin is white satin.
becky or molly or sue or beth
ten or eleven or nine or twelve

"mister, do you have a nickel?"


the ice cream truck's siren plays bach against the ears
of the children.
they run and dance, laugh and tease, ice cream dripping
across their hands like colored diamonds


"mister..."


he's sitting on a green bench in a park,
Notes of a Native Son between his hands,
his legs crossed at the ankle,
tie loose


"mister, do you have a nickel?"


he looks up and finds a small girl tugging on one of her golden pigtails.
her plaid skirt, green and girl scout looking, is being
twiddled in her other hand.


"mister?"


"no, i'm sorry, little lady, i actually don't."


at this, her head cocks. she looks at his pocket. she doesn't believe him.

he waits a moment then smiles and lifts his shoulders in reassurance.


"i'm sorry. i really don't."

she frowns

and frowns,


frowns,


"Niggers never have nothing."


(my face

is a shack

behind a plantation


the people who want me to forget

are never the right color)

_____________________________________

The cry I bring down from the hills
__________belongs to a girl still burning
__________inside my head. At daybreak

____________________she burns like a piece of paper. - YK