Skins ripple, righteous, indignant,
pour darkness from pores to pages
so I shrink to the back of class—
a wolf who didn’t mean to wander
into a chicken coop but can’t find
the exit, so I just sit in the back
& don my most goat-like face.

I want to explain: no, I’m not
a wolf, I’m a threadbare mutt
born under an abandoned boxcar
in a shadowy corner
of a shadowy country.
It doesn’t matter—to chickens
a mutt is bared teeth & salivating jaws.

I don’t want to make waves
so instead I write poems
about my feelings, emotions
my only inoffensive show-n-tell.
I wait until we’ve all gone
to sleep & climb a nearby hill,
whimper, sniff softly at the air.

Life is not a Pixar movie:
you can’t build allegiances
on good intentions, the distrust
arrives on well-plowed trails
from grandparents whose faces
look like mine: tinged red
with the blood of their ancestors.

I want to explain: no, I’m not
a killer, though my green eyes
& fair skin suggest latent murder.
I try to reach out my hand
but it’s the wrong color,
seized upon by antibodies
sensitized to Lilly-white pathogens.

What if it is my time to shut up,
to zip closed my mouth like a purse,
to purse my lips, hopeless, impotent?
I’m okay with impotence (it’s my turn
to carry it) but even the hapless mutt
wants to help bear guilt’s burden,
eager & willing: tell me I’m doing right.

I want to explain: no, I’m not
trying to make this about me,
though mutts need head pats.
Yes, Timmy can rescue himself
but he wasn’t the one who dove
down America’s tainted history—
it just swallowed him up, skin and all.