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Skinless
Prelude
In the summer of 2001, I enrolled in Sydney Brown's Introduction to Creative Writing class. When assigned to write a sonnet in the Elizabethan style, I focused on my reactions to those who proclaim pride in their race or ethnicity.
Skinless
A poet raps his rhymin', jivin' verse.
He's proud he's black, no honkey hack. All night
he undulates his lips in snaky curse.
He cannot call me brother 'cause I'm white.
A marcher heaves her banner in my eye.
“Chicana, Aztec, MECHA are my race,”
she chants, then pants, “La Raza is my cry.”
She can't caress nor kiss an Anglo face.
I turn away, I cannot stay where masks
conceal and won't reveal the human form.
A summer breeze uplifts, allots a task:
Go walk, go play, go flee the tribal storm.
In shade of jungle gym I hang, I swing.
Without a skin, we boys, we girls, we sing.