My brother’s classmates laugh
noon-light palms the bus windows
three boys diss his corduroy highwaters
in the back of the bus—their faces
gloved in spirals of daylight.1
______________________
1I didn’t know we lived a few counties
south from where Frederick Douglass stood
half-naked, one shirt for a whole winter.
His hands smaller than my brother’s
who took all the jokes on the school bus
You can see their tonsils
when one says: African
booty scratcher coolly
or dummy and another
chimes yeah dummy2
______________________
2 in silence, until it was time to leave.
There were usually a thousand leaves
to score our walk home from the bus stop.
It seemed like the light of the world
were those jokes
yeah four eyes or something
that makes you want to be
as far from the black that you are,
as cool as the lead boy
who pokes the most at your brother’s life.3
______________________
3 In Ibadan there are a thousand
leaves as well, on the walk back
to grandma’s home. The sun touches
all of the living like a fool. Its warmth leaves
everyday; and everyday it always returns.
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Dolapo Demuren is a Nigerian-American writer from the Washington D.C. area. He received his BA in writing seminars from Johns Hopkins University, MFA from Columbia University, and Ed.D from the University of Southern California. His honors include a Pushcart Prize nomination, fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and The Academy for Teachers, and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His poems and other writings are featured in the Adroit Journal, On the Seawall, Frogpond Journal, Prelude Magazine, and Small Orange Journal. He teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland College Park, where he is the associate director of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House and a lecturer for the College of Arts and Humanities.
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Syd Brewster is a writer and photographer from New York State. She recently graduated from Chapman University in Southern California and can be found on Instagram.
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