We snuck in to the inauguration.
We did.
There was a people's inauguration
down on this big football field.
Kids were getting their faces painted.
There was lots of music and good food.
And then there were these stone stairs leading up.
The higher you went up the stairs the more credentials
you needed.
So on the bottom, of course, was the press,
and they had these dignitaries, and then we got all the way up
to the top.
That was exactly where Mandela was
going to be making his inauguration speech.
So what we did-- it was like the Emmys or Oscars
where you stand there and people get out of their cars,
and, you know.
So we stood there and then these people got out of this cream
colored Mercedes, and we sort of fell into line behind them.
And we're talking to the backs like we belong with them,
and we put our credentials down.
It doesn't say much for security,
but we got all the way up to the top.
And then we have to have these seats,
so we just kind of kept wandering around.
Oh, do you know where a glass of water is?
Yeah.
So we got to be up there and see Mandela make his inauguration
speech, but this is a poem for me
and the two people who snuck in with me in case
I think the South African government is actually
looking for us now.
It's call "Inauguration Sneaky."
Me and Paul and me and Elaine and me and Paul and Elaine
slither in line behind the recent occupants of a massive,
cream colored Mercedes plopping down for a ride on their cloud.
Up, up, up the 1,000 stone stairs.
Heads down, glossy credentials dangling,
up past the Hellfire press pool with feverish scribes
and photogs, crabs scrambling up the backs of their colleagues.
And were up, up sweaty, underdressed,
totally awed at this sweet unscripted twist.
Pretoria, a barbed wire playground beneath us.
Military mamas in ANC drag doling out butter sandwiches
to their screaming kids, and it's up, up.
Even the air is privilege here, thin and sweet and measured,
and no one stops us and no one stops us and no one stops us.
Suddenly there is Colin Powell with his smashed face
and bottoms behind his eyes, and Ben [? Shane ?]
is in a teeny shafted suit.
And Paul is saying don't breathe,
don't breathe, and maybe they won't see us.
And Camille Cosby slices me over with rich eyes,
and Maya Angelou way back in the poet seats is thinking, rock,
river, tree, rock, river, tree.
Is that all I could come up with?
And we are star scoping, and we are stargazing, me and Elaine
and me and Paul and me and Paul and Elaine,
and Danny Glover's broad pinstripe on my left
and Quincy Jones's Jheri curl on my right.
Then I remember how we are here to taste this time,
to release doves into the air.
Wait.
One trembles in my hand.