Fitting the Profile
I have hesitated. I continue
to hesitate. I move from sun to shade
for the illusion of not getting burned.
We should have more words for shade.
Having been stopped in four different cities
for fitting the profile, I have now outgrown
that profile: young white punk alone
behind dumpsters or on a 3 a.m. side street
in the nice suburbs or in an angry cluster of similar
white boys of long hair and suspicious odor,
or parked in the empty lot of the abandoned theater
putting on an unrated show in their spotlight.
I can’t imagine being black — and young
and just walking. Multiple choices
dance their awkward No’s in unison,
which I imagine — but I just said I can’t —
but shouldn’t I? Try to imagine? As if
we could explain it away — wrong drugs,
mistranslation, regional hysterical tradition.
Fit the profile. Assume the position.
Assume the assumptions.
Once, they could not pretend
they were really looking for me.
Twice, they should have taken me in.
The peculiar smell in the back
of a cop car is not old cum or stale perfume.
It’s Fear 101 or Advanced Fear, or both.
How many hands against how many
cars, how many cuffed, how many heads
shoved down into that seat?
Just doing our jobs — did Pontius
Pilate originate that phrase? Mum
is not the word, but what is the word?
Hey, remember the time cops frisked us
in the Red Apple parking lot?
And in the gravel pile behind
Atlas machine shop, and in the shadows
of Pearl Street and the safety
of Sterling Heights, as flat as a run-over
dog? Remember at the Canadian border
when they found a pot seed in the floor mat?
You can never really erase a chalkboard.
It’s all there beneath the layers of dust.
Don’t be fooled. I’m talking to myself.
Don’t be fooled. Last night on the Warren side
of Eight Mile Road: three cop cars twirled
their hysterical lights, two black guys
in the position while six white officers
chatted and squawked on their devices.
Two hands rested on holstered guns.
When a hand rests on a gun, what kind
of rest is that? Keep moving,
keep moving. One Black guy caught
my eye, and gave the look that says
I know your story. He, who could not
keep moving.
They let us go. They always let us go.
* * * * *
Traffic Report
I saw the mirage of an old friend
on the street this morning.
I was walking through the intersection.
She sat in her car at the stop sign.
I looked over, as I always do
to make sure I won’t die.
Our eyes met. Nothing we could do
to pretend otherwise.
We have not been friend for years.
A multi-car pileup on the turnpike.
Nothing survived. She waved. I waved
as if to acknowledge her car
had stopped. It’s the safe thing
to do in my pedestrian life.
We waved at the mirage
of friendship, knowing it
would burn off like all mirages do.
I kept walking, she kept driving.
We did not need signs
to tell us what to do.