Upon Waking
for Amadou Diallo, shot 41 times by police officers
as he reached for his wallet, New York City, 1999
In a dream after your death I stood on the rocky
Shores of an island. Dark-skinned people, young
And old, pressed against boulders as helicopter
Gunships took aim. I cried out at a wall of wind:
"No, stop, they have histories!" - but it was too late.
The soldiers were acting in self-defense
Against the sudden move;
A people firing a round
Of stories that might
Have opened hearts
Locked down as the
Lids of caskets.
We Talk About Spanish
Not in Spanish
Dream with dictionaries
Blood-thinners
Marrying out to whites
Damn good black beans
But so what?
Oh there were times
Like in the orage groves
Outside Phoenix
My task was to mark charts
To ask the Guatemaltecas
When was your last period?
And so on as they lined up
To see a doctor in a trailer
And there was that night
in Harvard Yard
When a North Vietnamese
Soldier-poet tested
Spanish he learned in Cuba
It worked
We found a third way
His voice a high-wire
I crossed over to him
Fearless as a spider
If we didn't know a word
We filled in the blank
With a star
It is a light
That years later
I try not to curse
