WEBVTT

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So I wrote this poem for my
son when he was about 13.

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And it was about the time that
Tamir Rice had been killed.

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He was a young boy who was
shot in the middle of a park

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because he was playing
with a toy gun.

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And the police
rolled up and echoes

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of Trayvon Martin and all the
Black boys who have been killed.

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My son now is 22, and just
graduated from Syracuse.

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And I'm honestly a little
more worried about him

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now than I was back then.

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Hoodie.

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A gray hoodie will not
protect my son from rain,

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from the New England cold.

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I see the partial eclipse of
his face as his head sinks

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into the half dark
and shades his eyes.

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Even in our quiet suburb
with its unlocked doors,

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I fear for his safety.

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The darkest child on our
street in the empire of blocks.

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Sometimes, I do not
know who he is anymore.

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Traveling the back roads
between boy and man,

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he strides a deep stride, pounds
a basketball into wet pavement.

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Will he take his shot?

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Or is he waiting
for the open mouth

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orange rim to take
a chance on him?

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I sing his name to the
night, ask for safe passage

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from this borrowed body
into the next and wonder,

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who could mistake him
for anything but good?

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This is my baby.

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He's my baby.

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