Wade

He stood framed by trees
in a trackside creek
along our highway home
naked aside from his unbleached skivvies
with skin the color of Dutch cocoa
and the chisel marks of breeding
from a time when his oppression
was more blatant.
The look on his face
showed stone cold intent
though I'll never know
what called him
to the water that September
in the north side of the Bronx
hidden there in a polluted stream
that only a middle-aged, God-fearing Negro
could appreciate.

If my head had been turned
any other protractor reading
than ninety degrees
I never would have seen him
fly by at seventy-five.
My life would be the same.
I've read of John the Baptist.
There are far more frightening demigods
I've birthed inside my skull
with less imposing noms de guerre
usually ending in vowels.

It's something of a sobriquet
the codes used for each other.
The witch's minions had it right:
"All we own we owe."