5 Poems
Field Trip
Nicholas was waiting for me on the blacktop after lunch,
the afternoon I finally asked Angel for money
to buy a strawberry Fruit Rollup. She always smelled like
cocoa butter, and her teeth were so white
behind big, pink lips. She said, You stay away
from Nicholas, you hear? She said it like an old, black
woman, hands on her hips.
But there was something about
the way he climbed ropes in gym class. Tiny muscles pumping
in thin, white arms.
His breath didn’t smell like cereal milk, he smelled like syrup, and a mom
with more time. I followed him past the swings,
he wore Velcro sneakers, a collared shirt with a penguin stitched
on the chest. He beat me, kicked me, next to a tree with fat roots
growing out of the ground. He said I was a nigger.
Helicopters fell from maple trees, with no sound
when they touched down. He had my arms behind my back,
so I couldn’t catch one, peel it open for the sticky, green seed.
