Corey

By MIK AWAKE

Became a skinhead
a year after he moved from
Bumblefucktucky.
Hit me with his cast.
Hurt people hurt people
often with their hurt parts.
Who broke his arm?
His step-dad step on him?
They was poor, but they was white.
A black eye was the only
color he brought to art class.
Who put him at my table?
Who sicced him on me?
Did you say black guy?
Nah, said nigger, nigger.
You know how kids kid.
Basketball in the gym.
They sicced him on me.
Cut my lip with that bum wing,
and smirked, but I kept
going. Still going. Cuz
who ain’t got a Daddy?
Corey got brolic, then fat,
puffy, sad, beery.
Probably couldn’t spell
graduation, dropped off
the earth’s face, like how daylight
does in winter, so early
and leaving night so black.
For no reason, for sport, for season.
Lived in rumors of racist assault
that tickled the rich kids:
A sasquatch, a legend, a spook.

MIK AWAKE’s work has appeared in The Awl, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Callaloo, Witness, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. He teaches writing in the City University of New York system and lives in Brooklyn.

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