In the heart of Georgia
The fast foods chains fatten the black child
To a venomous infarction of heart capillaries
Knowing the black child who grows into a strapping young man
Has a few extra genes to not make
It across the Marsh creek to the Gettysburg field
Of precarious life.
And the ghosts of Lincoln
Hover from the top of basketball hoops
On a lonely court near the capital Washington
As a negro boy bounces a basketball
Off the square behind the ring
Hoping to escape the phantoms
Of his genetic make-up, the many fallen genes
That makes fat deposits inside arteries.
And in this tragic predisposition
It is the fast food chains that kill more black men
Than hood violence or rifled white men in uniform
And through the painted face of a clown
The black child will learn that
It is not the pantomimed skin that is the enemy
Only the obese burger that is served
By a lass in a striped garment
And as milky white teeth grip into a patty and bun
Little white plaques will form inside
The tributaries of an obese heart
Promising the oblivious black man
One for the road.
Kite Dreams 