I broke north with no delay
the day the cops caught me peeing
in my neighbor’s mailbox,
the one to the left with the mutt
who wouldn’t shut up—always
yipping loudest at 8pm before
I had an astronomy test. Cops never
came to our neighborhood,
so why then? Zipper down,
me looking up & charting
constellations as the reds
& blues flashed & the stars blinked
away. Then I was out like shout
as the song says: zipping up
on the run, middle-aged cops
in pursuit, their bellies shaking like
the jelly bowls in holiday carols.
Those Indianapolis police pumped
their arms in L shapes like high school
track stars who remembered
the postures but forgot their 5th place
finishes as I cut through the other
neighbor’s yard & split chain link
into the salvation of the cornfield.
On the other side of those stalks:
one of those pop-up circuses
in my high school parking lot,
movable Ferris wheel wobbling
above corn tops as bumper cars
bullied each other down low
& the red-faced clown in the dunk
tank yelled the usual epithets at any
Black person who walked by.
The clown gave me a damp
double take when I sprinted by,
but couldn’t think of the right
thing to call me to make me stop.