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zebra suit
From shadows I watch angry nocturnals conversing in deep white man topics. Geared in biblical copper, slobbering, sullen in mercury vapor they march off to riot all they see. A large protective black man shoos me away, says he knows safety, a short cut plowed ages ago by a runaway bus, snaking through what Baltimore has long forgotten to offer. Here in a circling wagon train of row houses, landlocked and fortressed lies a complete inner-city circus in ruin. Proud striped tents of uproar passed off as tipped over appliances and trapeze rust. Pregnant jennies dolled up like zebras baa at evaporated ringmasters. Showgirl elephants burn fuel oil in winter’s belly. Crystal balls littered the alley like booze. Magical negroes long gone to huckster vanishment. Now, only the occasional city work crews and trucks show up to haul and lasso while the small black children run circles around the finality of it all ...biding their own time to disappear, one by one by one.