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I couldn’t match the Hangul or crawl in Urdu
but I could witness

Liver spots and cheeks bright red
brown beaten alligator shoes in all black with gold chain
He never looked at me in the eyes…
back home he would be a dirty old man pimpified
and drunk,
flashy bills to compensate the slow death
of his unsatisfied hair committing seppuku

Two brown faces
Spit shoots like fireballs
across the subway seat
Finger cursing, two machetes in his bag
black handled wooden coat
Go to hell!– I want to shout
But I’m NOT leaving

It could have been some
Mojado against an armed rancher,
It could have been a 1970s silent white kid
on a Mississippi bus full of black folks
in a come to Jesus meeting ‘cuz the sheriff’s wait’n,
The hatred stays the same
–Spic, Go home!
Nigger, you pollute the race!–

God, please look up and MOVE!
You don’t have to take this
The subway has plenty of seats
You came here out of need to fulfill a need
You came here to a better society
The plead escaped me in one Spanish word
and their eyes met mine:

Bloodshot and sniffling
no tears, no anger
they couldn’t be more than 23
telling me without words
in the silence of the passengers
that they already moved

My face reddens
I…don’t know if to feel guilty
I don’t know if to speak…
Am I wrong to ask for justice
because I’ve always had it?
Am I just looking at this from
western mentality?

Sometimes I think
that racism is a genealogical,
irremovable,
handicap in the human race

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