Three Young Black Men

Mohawk dipped in blonde,
confident, handsome, skin the color
of mahogany, razor trimmed hair neat
with recognizable boundaries.
He won't accept those placed on him
by anyone else, won't fail because
he's been told he will, won't fail to try
because someone told him he'd best
not get uppity or put on airs. He'll take on
the black community, the whites, teachers,
the po-po, whoever dares to tell him he can't,
because he was born with "can" stamped across 
a perfect forehead. You can hear it in his
voice, articulate, soft, paying unoffended homage 
to customs from another era. He can dance,rap,
play sports, ace tests. He can do
anything, be anything. He knows this, but I
didn't ask if he realizes that his name 
means god of beauty and desire. 
He's grown into the name
easily, wears it very well.

This one's black as ebony, wide as a doorway
but football's not his thang. He doesn't feel it,
see, so don't make assumptions about black atheticism
or wanting to pound white boys into the turf.
He's seen the rough streets of Brooklyn and
is bored down here in sunny Florida, but
he can do bored, if it saves his life. No ghetto
for him, he's got his luxury car all picked out
and he'll work for it. He's a poet, a writer,
a dreamer with hip-hop ambitions who'll
drop a hundred bucks or more if they're
the shoes he needs to have. He takes a shower
just to go to the store, abhors sweat and filth.
Not your typical high school boy, but then again,
who really is? Typical went out of style long ago.

Skinny, at first glance, the third's pure muscle,
shredded underneath the dress-code button-down
that constricts him to an annoying degree
when he does an impossibly long handstand
just to prove he can. He shows off moves that
white folks can't do, it's not in their genes, so he
doesn't hold it against them. He's flawless in his
delivery and manner and speech, has a home business,
hopes to get a scholarship to a good dance school
and make it big. Humble, he teaches other kids
his moves without asking for anything in return,
encourages the talented around him to try big
things, expect big things.

They talk to me easily, a white grandmother
who raises an eyebrow and asks them to watch
their language when an F-bomb drops casually,
but they're the teachers today, not I. I want to put them
in front of cameras and reporters and conservatives
and liberals and scream,  you think you know who 
these guys are, but you don't! You couldn't possibly,
unless you've pulled up a chair and asked them
to tell you, in their own words, what's in their souls.


(c)Ellen Gillette, 2012