(High school, 1958)
collective grunts on browned
grass playing fields
never bridged those unlike
me. black sons of
storefront preachers; buzz-cut
blonds; serb exiles —
boy squads split by strangeness,
marching canyoned
tribal lines. reflecting
silently dark
anxious yearnings. signals
blocked by filters.
kindness foreign to teen
hormones. contact
casually deflected.
lives left out
unseen.
