And the sun readies himself for sleep, drowses
backward toward the horizon, and the woods
whisper while the wind massages
the sprawling arms of leaf-thick maples,
heavy shadows cast like dark angels
breast-stroking through the courtyard’s grass,
and a man yells to an 8th grade black
kid not to walk around with
white girls, and a sleeveless light blue
shirt flails around his pink chest and pot gut,
and behind him, on the apartment’s wall, three
shotguns, and three buildings away the boy’s white
mother stirs tomato soup into ground beef
for sloppy joes, and the white girl with the black boy
kicks at the furry clumps of new-mown grass,
stares at her feet, and neighbors whisk the boy
back to his building while the man screams
at the boy, calling him what he does, and kids
play stickball in the tennis courts, and the boy makes
fists in his pockets, and the ice cream truck
slows, passes, and without a word the boy
sits to dinner and lifts the sandwich
to his mouth.

Copyright Credit: Ross Gay, “Summer” from Against Which. Copyright © 2006 by Ross Gay. Used with the permission of CavanKerry Press, Ltd.