There was the arm, the black
pricey number barely on her
white shoulder in broad daylight.
Why first did she have to look
to my face when she screamed
stop? I did nothing
except look up from the gas pump,
yes—held tight as a gun,
before I looked back down again to witness
nothing, only my shadow. I saw nothing—
just two boys who favored me
when I was that age and always mistaken
for being older. I mean, I felt nothing,
except that my body was not my body
anymore; stomach shoved aside
to make room for two more; I was an animal
raised to be slaughtered in the name of a
pricey leather number dangling from a shoulder
to be stolen. It all happened so fast—
my shadow bled into their shadows,
for a moment, a second, an eye-blink,
as we fled across the lot. We
were at play together in a race
like brothers. And like brothers,
just like that, the shadows broke apart
and we were separated again. I saw nothing—
only their bodies
slid into the back of a white van and
I slid back into my white car
as if I might chase them down
to save them or
I don’t know. I did nothing,
I brought both hands to my face.
I heard the white van’s wheels peel the afternoon
like a mask I thought could never be removed—
a skin. When the police sirens grew larger,
I pulled my hands from my face,
placed them on the steering wheel.
from Fantasia for the Man in BlueFind more by Tommye Blount at the library
Copyright © 2020 Tommye Blount
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.