Something a little funny about race

Three black girls

sat in a corner

of Central Field.

An old white male

watched them

from across the way.

Presumptions are made

all the time

based on the color of skin,

of age, of gender.

It’s simpler that way.

Several years ago

these girls would have learned

how to add their ages together

and would still find that their total is

less than my single sum.

But are we equal to?

My people,

I presume those generations long gone

to be mine,

they came to this part of the world

some years well after

their people, more presumptions made,

were freed in this country’s

Civil War,

skirmishes for their freedom

breaking out from time to time

to this very day.

So many simplifications

in telling the tales.

Their people.

My people.

People of my skin color

and my gender,

were mindlessly  and maliciously

raping and lynching

those people of darker hues -

so long ago by these girls lives,

yet so very near the time of my own birth

in this land of the not yet fully free.

All this matters,

the math and the history,

but today I care about something else.

These school girls must have seen me coming

and I hope their merry laughter

is of a simple sort,

and I smile at what I presume

young girls might find that is funny

in a ruddy face and aging gait.

If only we each get our turn.

And then they rose,

their kinky black hair,

their skinny-jeaned legs

like scissors in harmony,

and the three girls scampered up the hill

and vanished behind the school house doors.

I presumed they were my people,

from the way they giggled.

Why wouldn’t I?

It’s better that way.