I remember,
in the early 60s,
our thirty mile drive
from our historic family farm,
in relentlessly White rural Michigan,
not counting the Mexican migrant workers
whom our Elders pointedly discarded
Singing
on the first shifty shopping trip to Thrifty Acres,
through vibrantly young Black
urban heated streets
of capital glancing Lansing.
Stevie Wonder and I
nearby
yet out casting far
Him singing
all Black city churches
ringing
And me queer pillaged
in all White rural churches
villaged
Stevie and me,
harmonic neighbor memory
in my privately humming heart
Yet never possible to publicly meet
and privately greet
as this sacred land
and this organic Earth
were meant to resonantly sing
and resiliently dance
our regenerations in caste
together
not degenerations outcast
apart.
I didn’t know apartheid by default yet
but I do remember
seeing nearly black as ink skin
for my very first impassioned time
On a smiling brown-eyed boy
on a chipped and flat white painted bike
without defensive rims
And dim longing to talk
and listen
and laugh with him
About fresh green smells of freedom
from poor tired training wheels
Freedom to create our fast together pedaling breeze
across summer’s hot black
and white hate faces and arms
Knowing I would touch his warm dark skin
with loving wonder
What it could be like to be recast with him,
to sing and dance together,
to smell and feel and fly
our rich diverse integrity
on a brave tandem red in-your-face bike
Built for two
bright shining all ways back
restorying Black street glancing Lansing
Through my little Whitely inbred WoodLand
spreading sadist out across all Black without White
decapitalizing cities
divorced from woodland farmers
Left alone
to peddle fly while singing
our glad,
not sad or bad or mad,
hosanna holy wonders
As I reweave
this first drive by encounter
with outcast avenue perversity
against homo-sapient diverse
curiosity
I imagine asking Mom to stop,
pull our metallic gold Ford over
so I could ask his thick black-framed glasses name,
which would sing Stevie
And take his wondrous hand
to walk his bike back to home
and long familiar family
where we would live together
happily
and healthily
and wisely
most prosperously ever after
cast together all.
This was my erasing moment,
too quickly racing past,
to know passion’s love
at first passed sight
Sublime sung sounds
and dark dancing
satin brown skin smells
of Stevie’s tandem wonder.
gdill52 