Observation of a Racist in the Wild

Eight kids—maybe 12 or 13–

Have claimed the top of the tallest jungle gym tower. 

No malice—just kids stacking up on a slide 

Wrestling gravity and conforming like sardines.

Just kids.

Until a voice twangs out—

“Ef you hurt mah son, ah weell cawll the po-lice!”—

What police? The fun police?

The non-Caucasian kids police?

The tween police? The grown up gestapo?

Whose only purpose is to smother spontaneous joy? 

molecules never touch

 The driver of the bus to hell—

her words, not mine—
said everyone in the place was going
except me.
She said i was too pure of heart

which left me reeling. 
What was she seeing? 
Some heart-on-sleeve long-suffering 
i haven’t been hiding? 
Some dogged class-clowning?
My willowy spine swaying in the winds
of our general discontent?
Is that really idealism
or am i just too damned exhausted 
with long grief and the longer-dawning revelation
of the impossibility of compassion—
the way molecules never truly touch
but we still feel friction—
just what i, in my secret arrogance,
think of as my cursed wisdom?