So I'm going to start.
The poems at the beginning that Gabe so eloquently introduced
all started by trying to do something
very simple, something I had the privilege of doing,
and that was getting a passport photo at a Walgreens or a Duane
Reade.
And then things got weird.
Standing in line to take a passport photo,
an old white man looks at me and claims I am running.
Standing here because my grandpa ran away from home
to sell perfume en el zócalo at 9:00.
In line, I am a lot of things.
And since I am a lot of things, I am everything he cannot
imagine.
A passport photo asks me to two by two myself
and capture what I am in neutral.
And I recall I have yet to see the chambers of my heart turn
tusk.
An old white man is-- a old white man
is not Gil Scott-Heron, saying, because I always
feel like running, not away because there is no such place.
Is not how you pronounce exile or escapar.
Looks at me how Teddy Roosevelt died coveting a white buffalo,
claims I am afraid.
No, I am a wall.
No, I am a mirror.
I am still, so still.