ARTHUR VOGELSANG
Jr. High
When it was called that I was there,
Studying, my favorite thing after ball
Where I was awarded one of three
Best athletes. Because I was smart
It was a very good school and neighborhood and a
Black doctor moved in with a black son 13
And naturally in the house other blacks.
We didn’t call them that then.
Bobby Kennedy hadn’t yet called them
Negroes because he wasn’t Bobby Kennedy.
Since I liked the son, 13, and thought
I was an untouchable star, brain and body,
I talked a lot to the bright dark kid and got in a little trouble.
It wasn’t enough trouble for my parents to say
Look, I wouldn’t hurt one but I wouldn’t
Want to live near them, when mom and dad came to school
To see the vice-principal about me. I persisted. I sat
Next to him in assembly, the seat next to him
Empty though there were standees
Because the entire school was required to be informed about
Nuclear weapons. We both already knew that stuff and
Whispered and laughed about the speaker.
This persistence got me cornered in the men’s room
Where I was hit and pushed until I did their bidding
Which was to say the word we can’t say now.
Among Arthur Vogelsang’s seven books are Orbit from the Pitt Poetry Series, Cities and Towns, which received the Juniper Prize, and Twentieth Century Women, which was chosen by John Ashbery for the Contemporary Poetry Series.
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Canada, UK and India
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