Passing: A Poem

From center stage-lit, high-browed 

Face, with hue

White as any, context of offering apologia

Biographical, words come 

Confess some

Mixed bloodline of race—for purpose serves

Backtown hick, long as 

Near-relation, well as

Black or Indian, then for

First time perk up languid

Listeners in aisles who now

Are searching, eyes, for signs

Not before seen in 

Familiar face, lines 

Or pigments that give

Up the game and each in mind

Like catching some 

Hysterical illness, like licking paint

In children’s school, like phantom gas 

In bomb shelter

Thinks “I

Can see it! It’s there! Can you?” (Doesn’t matter

Each knows the face did not 

Change color intervening, it’s like 

Those illusions where 

Old man swaps his

Chin for hair

And turns thereby 

Into beauteous youth) 

“And Here we were 

Thinking, he was like us, Like us he spoke on Subject out 

Of Goodness of Heart, like us 

Instead we find 

Another case 

Of special pleading, public working out 

Of private jealousy” Each catches thought,

Embarrassed, quick, tucks away like

Stained kerchief --

Though interest

Flags, for some, the rest

Lean forward in and 

Strain towards more, 

Eyes wide now mouths in

Mold of Hallmark greeting slipping 

Margarine kindness dripping 

Cooing pity, pitting

Encouraging nods against his last grasp of

Human-manity “Take your 

First steps! Can do it!” Speaker knows

What they are doing, has done

The same his self, has shunned

Plenty of others, has been 

Cooer and clucker and killer, has sinned

Thus against so many 

Passers before, ones

Further down

On color pole