Over the shoulder of a guy in front of me,
a child hangs his dirty handprint on the opaque
window so grown-ups will see no color,
but light and some room to stand.
But white meadow of the underground
eye, why must you notice these
dark straps, these snap-on nooses
tied to balance bars in subway cars?
Have we all been buried standing, and which
in this crowd of us is on their way to work,
cut out for that cut-above-the-rest promotion,
or to push time’s back a bit further
up against this trunk, a current spin might be
that even tire swings are black, that maybe
they’re the leftover halos of freed slaves dragged
down unpaved roads tied to the bumpers
of white pickup trucks, and now which in this
crowd of us will grow up, get off at the next
station for a Master’s degree, wherein
who now’s wearing the whip-stripe necktie?
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