FOOL THAT I AM

14 years after
18 years prior
32 years later

there are gatherings held
attended by most of them
some since grammar school

some names remembered
others by facial features
sincere smiles & handshakes

they remember details
differently as simple as
hours in short or long days

14 years afterward
18 years prior
32 years later

grows years older
& still we plan to meet
just because we remember
&
all on the mailing list

it's good to see all of them
remembering yearbooks
walkouts & food fights
& happy because there was
one more black face in that class
one less reminder the 2nd floor
hallway at the northern end was
always patroled

the place
where all the black kids could
breathe before becoming lost
in a sea of foreign tongues &
hostile stares in 50-minute intervals,
but in those four minutes between
classes, i would run to that corner
of the world, & the neighborhood
& home greeted you somehow
so i mostly thought

30 black faces in a sea of 608
kids from across the continent
in october 1987
came together through
lotteries, early applications
& feeder schools to learn something
as freshmen
that only 197 of us barely knew
13 black faces seeing one another
for the first time remembering
what the first was before
i go to the reunions
sit with the ghosts
& premonitions
for a spell still
after high school, house music & tretorn gym shoes
after grammar school, box haircuts & trenchcoats
32 years later

looks like 15 years ago

just more computers...

H.
8-24-2005