Through His Smile (A poem based on an actual event)

The soles of my sneakers
Crunched gravel. I had
A rhythm. I was in
Locomotion.

My backpack
Was taking a piggyback.

Cartoons
And nachos on my mind--
School milk on my bladder.

A cloudless sky lit my path home,
Through the only neighborhood
I had ever known:

The yellow townhouses
On grass mountains.
The chain-link fences,
Shady brick homes.

Nothing new;

Another seventh-grade afternoon.

Not even the rumble
Behind me
Could have warned me of the approaching truck--

I refused to be alarmed--

But I never expected
To see a beige truck roll by,
At thirty miles per hour,
Yet in slow motion,

Or a bearded white face
Hang out of the window
And shout, "Nigger!"
Through his smile.

That never happened
On other seventh-grade afternoons.

The truck disappeared into the greying distance.

The brick homes
And yellow townhouses
Seemed to stare
As I walked on.

The gravel didn't crunch right
The rest of the way.

When I walked into my home,
Questions contorted my face.

Questions
Neither cartoons
Nor nachos
Could answer.

--J. J. Johnson (22)

Written in 1997, for a poetry class at VCU.