or doesn't touch
or will or should, like
the cork-hat or the cork-hatted man,
his sons: Irwins, Kratts, Hanna
in safari tan, all.
or the mother of watching, who crouches
hidden recording & watching a band
or family troop or community that--
(how does she rank them? a step above us? me a step below her?)
in the light of the college's chapel
what did she think when i raised my hand and voice:
'i think their rights are not as pressing
for now'? or the plant-fed girls seated around me
or the father of altruism, sitting tenured
over his envisioned drowning child,
hands forming professorial barrels
around something like 'liberation'
--i want to say he stole that word
just as his young infiltrate a farm quicker than a prison,
free cattle sooner than a man
before all that, i lay before the tv
(9 or younger
(legs swinging
(hair still braided)
with my animal books & a notepad
sketching the photos of roseate spoonbills
pallas cats
fennec foxes
endangered and extinct:
that whales this pigeon that tigers
i am not Black yet
when we are all beasts
a human onscreen talks of warmth and breasts
& i realize my mothers (& my own someday)
but i don't yet weigh men's bodies
against dogs or lions;
link the wildness of the Motherland
to my own blood
or recognize the yokes or cages & colonies in it no
i learn somethings of Human Nature,
build my morals it brick by fact by brick
they tell me something about tooth and claw
violent innocence green wonder
black theory has yet to address