History Makes Concessions for White Boys At the Food Lion,

this cute one hangs and guts

the pot-bellied pork;

I suppose his kisses salt and slime

Like Spam gelatin swathing my tongue

as I lipsynced good vibrations

like Mark Walberg wasn’t just

a white boy in dropped boxers

protesting the mullet

I remember his face now,

he and his girlfriend mashed like Juicy Fruit

in that big ass, dixie-flagged, Ford f-150

me, a member of the yellow school bus clique,

sitting, suffocating, three-deep in a pleathered seat;

Mexican, Black, Po White Trash, Cousins of Cousins

muddled like the fuzz between pecan trees

and A.M. radio stations;

her hands, gold nugget promise rings,

engaged his stringy hair;

as his dual mufflers fumed down Highway 403,

racial divide scoured the windshields

of our wheeled, county property

He steps outside between slaughterings

to smoke a red-boxed Marlboro.

I notice his bangs have grown out;

he stares as if my locks carry remnants

of barrettes and blurred bus numbers;

we nod and smile, an understood country greeting;

I figure he and his girlfriend still coast cramped,

the same way public transportation taught us

to squeeze tight in our assigned seats

in case the white boy’s pick-up broke down

Why else would we make room for a passenger