The suburban skies
Crackled with the signal
The national TV crews had descended
On the press conferences and vigils
The food-court pundits at the mall
She looked out
Through her frozen blue eyes
From all the grocery-store checkout-line front-pages
At the tiny, grainy, black and brown faces
In yellowing flyers pinned to the wall

Her objections are
Inspired, literate, brilliant
In her cutting cadence, in her Northside drawl
When Ms. England cuts her off
Saying, “Girl, you’re just too loud!”
She has bowed her
Braided, beaded head back toward her notes, but
I can sense her shoulders slightly shake
I can hear the tears tapping on the page
I can see the ink begin to cloud

The infield is thick with
Cries of “burnt biscuit” and “white chocolate.”
Then “bitch,” “bank account,” “peckerwood.”
I grow red in the stinging swarm of words
When somebody yells and points at the street
There, like some old Western movie
A few Mexican boys
Kick a ball into the park’s dusty fringe
The posse turns from me to glare at the intruders
I drink deep of the hateful relief
Underneath the sheets of white noise
This city sings her multitudes
Underneath the sheets of white noise
The verses long, the beats raw and loose
Underneath the sheets of white noise
She sings awake her daughters and sons
Underneath the sheets of white noise
And, at my very best, I’m only one

You envision the
Raj’s stone halls, the dark, defiled Ganges
She slaps the lectern. Snow hurries past the window
She points to the silent roar of burning widows
Blackened figures on a bleached field
Your thoughts turn south
The crowd outside the hunched foodmart
And that sagging copy of an old plantation
Windows clad in pressboard, columns kudzu-laced
Can the cornerboys speak?
Can the collegeboy hear?

Underneath the sheets of white noise
This city sings her multitudes
Underneath the sheets of white noise
The verses long, the beats raw and loose
Underneath the sheets of white noise
She sings awake her daughters and sons
Underneath the sheets of white noise
And, at my very best, I’m only one