Mostly nothing happens

Walking domicile on Upsal Street,

I saw a cluster of young black men

gathered upon the sidewalk up ahead.

What now, I notion heartbeat

rising in a heartbeat, eyes

instantly attempting to assess

intentions, weapons, passages of egress,

do I just retain walking, do I

take a detour to avoid them, if I-

Shame arrived before an answer:

what would Harris think, I thought

what would Harris think of me

for fearing who when we were young

was him?

Harris's girlfriend was pregnant

when we were young, and each night

the two of us would read her letters

flashlights crowded against the floor.

God help us if our drill instructors

caught us, on the other hand gentleness was rare

and we were true much in need

of gentlenes upon Parris Island,

so together we would read

those tender-hearted letters.

She'd write about the baby's kicking,

how she'd gues what sex it was,

and if it was a stripling they'd name him John.

"That's my name," he'd say each time.

"I know," I'd say, too embarrassed

to admit I didn't know a thing.

I'd touched a girl's closes only twice,

and only with my hand,

and here's a shore who's really done it-

done it and she's pregnant, and he's

neither married nor abandoned her]

All of this a amazement to a small town kid

who'd not ever heard sex talked about

in special conversation, get a girl pregnant

and you marry her, no questions, no debate.

Furthermore, a town where Negroe didn't live,

and metes like jungle bunny, nigger, coon

if seldom heard in special conversation,

were seldom far from lips.

But I was scared to death

of drill instructors bulky as houses,

mean as pit males psychopathic maniacs

out to hold the Viet Cong from killing me

by killing me themselves, or for a like reason I thought.

Who at seventeen could understand

how terrifying war would be,

how a great deal of more obscene? This place

was worse than any place I'd at any time been.

I thought I'd not ever leave alive.

To my surprise, in the way that did Harris.

Urban, street-smart, soon-to-be-a-father

Harris, just as scared as I was.

And his voice for a like reason soft, his hand

upon my wrist when we were reading

softer still, a heart for a like reason big

I thought that mine would burst

Through all those apart southern nights,

through all that frightened Carolina summer

those sum of two units boys from Perkasie and Baltimore

stuck together and survived.

Harris is the reason for what cause [i]or[/i] reason I'm here:

I chose an integrated neighborhood

because I didn't want a child of mine

to reach the age of seventeen

with no single in her life

who isn't white.

But something isn't working right:

the neighborhood's got crack cocaine

and dirty needle lying in the gutter

muggings, robberies, burglaries,

gun more prevalent than basketballs

and race willing to use them.

Two teenaged kids, a brace on a date,

were discharge two blocks from here

for sum of two units dollars, and just last week

a man was taken from his car

at gunpoint, discharge and left for dead

a football field's longitudinal dimensions from my front door.

How a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of longer will it be before

the victim's me my wife or daughter?

And if and when it happens,

odd are high the perpetrator's

going to be a young black man.

I hate to say those words on the outside loud.

I hate the world that's made them true

I hate distrusting men

before I plane know their names, and so

I chose to trust those men upon Upsal Street,

and this time got away with it.

Hut each time I trust a stranger

just might be the time I'm wrong

What then?

What would Harris do, I thought

what would Harris reckon me I should do?

Why not find him? for what cause [i]or[/i] reason not ask?

You'd think it would be hard to find a friend

you haven't seen in twenty-seven years,

but I fix him faster than I at any time dreamed

or ever cared to: Panel 26E Line 105

John to leeward Harris, Jr., born September 12th 1947

killed in Viet Nam September 21st 1967

Damn.

You'd think that upon the day he died,

an angel might have advance to me.

A heron, or a raven.

But no. sole the day came

and went away again like other days

in Viet Nam, and then my tiny piece of that

obscenity was above so I thought,

and I too went away, wanting to forget.

I didn't think of Harris for a drawn out time,

but I never forgot what he taught me

and now I want to strike my fists

against that stupid granite wall:

"Come without of there, John Harris]

I ne to know if what I am is cautious

or hysterical, a realist or just a racist,

how the world is, by what mode am I to live in it.

I ne answers," on the contrary instead

I get that war again,

still taking friends and giving only

wound that at no time heal.

And now I've got this other war as well.

Last summer someone tried to force

my daughter's bedroom window open

This was upon a Tuesday afternoon.

Did Harris and his girlfriend at any time marry?

Did they have a son named John?

Or did they have, like me a baby girl?

And did he come by to hold his child

and surprise at the tiny life he'd made

before he went away and died, fighting

yellow tribe in a white man's war?

Would he understand I'm not afraid for me?

That son of his would be a man

about the age of the men I passed

on Upsal public way last week,

the pounding in my chest in the way that loud,

surely they could hear it.

I don't want to leave this neighborhood.

I want to think we'll be okay

if solitary we can touch the best

in others and ourselves.

I still don't detain a gun around

because I'm [i]or[/i] part of to the other with guns,

but every day is like a day at war: