Shadow Dancing

© 2 August 2009, The Griot Poet

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” Carl Sandburg

My shadow was Mr. Tedford: science teacher from my middle school past that on my lack of completely grasping the principle of linear expansion shouted his bearded disappointment:

“No, You big dummy...!”


I faked an obviously faked laugh as the dagger he stabbed me with sunk deep.

I never told my parents, I never demanded an apology for his pomposity and his mendacity,

I self-sedated; I ate [more] massive amounts of potato chips: comfort food to medicate internal wounds.

My shadow is JROTC Cadet Colonel Wall: Aryan, standing tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed, bedecked in ribbons, highest ranking Brigade Commander of Winston-Salem, Forsyth County schools that at a casual question shot back:

“YOUR kind will NEVER get to this rank!”
(“No, You big dummy…!”)

My heart sank and I expressed my stress and angst to my parents.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” my dad said with a knowing glance and genuine pain in tearing eyes that hoped I’d never have this experience.

“You go back and tell that booger-bootch you can do anything you set your mind to with GOD on your side,” mom said parodying Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I did: “In three years,” I said, “I’ll be wearing your rank.”
“I doubt that,” he said in arrogant confidence.

3 years hence:

Veni; Vidi; Vici!

I stood tall, African son, black-haired, brown-eyed, bedecked in ribbons,
Making history in the Winston-Salem Sentinel (no longer in circulation),
My dead mothers’ scribbled note on the article to my Uncle James Dean:

“This is Reggie… your nephew… my son.”

And I, have lost both of them and the innocence of the mythology of my beginnings,
Insurance claims, death certificates, will probates crowds out my time for grieving, economy not allowing me to evening mourn over their sealed graves,

On anniversaries of his death and my corporate denouement: August 26, 1999 and 2003;
On her recent demise two days before Mother’s Day weekend 2009:

One dagger remains:

Tedford/Science/Certification

I did not tell them;

And now I’ve lost them,

I stagger as I attempt to remove (alone) the dagger!