Our corner is busy and dangerous,
crashing, stalling, tires bursting, pausing for directions,
frequent flurries of activity, glass, metal, yelling.

I walked down the driveway to get the mail and
noticed the car where there is no parking, but
made no eye contact, not my business.

The driver was on his phone,
a young black man.
He stopped his conversation and got out of his car.

He told me that he was sorry, that he was working on it,
that sometimes when he drives his car too long it overheats.
I nodded and smiled as he spoke.

“You’re fine. Do you need me to call anyone?”
“No, I have called someone.”
He apologized again. I thought to myself how overly polite he was.

As I walked up the driveway to the house again, I felt a snowball to the gut.
He thought I’d seen him through the curtains and was getting the mail
as a ruse to see if he looked dangerous.

He was afraid. In broad daylight. On a busy corner.
I was a potential “Karen”.
His mother had given him “the talk.”

I went, teary-eyed, to the freezer for a peace offering, as if
blue twin pops could somehow say, “You are safe here in my eyes,”
but whoever he’d called had already picked him up.