When I ask A.P.D. what they need
helicopters with spotlights for

When I ask Don't you know
that if you treat people like animals
that they usually react like animals?

The mailman brings me
a three hundred-word letter on crisp, pristine
Albuquerque Police Department stationary,
an eloquently-worded, neatly typed
thanks-for-your-concern, but...

Hey man
Im just trying to understand

I'm just trying to understand why I sleep
When stray 9mm shots wake my roommates

I'm just trying to understand why my neighbors
wanna start a Neighborhood Watch Program

I'm just trying to understand why the 7-11 clerks
in this town watch me intently after midnight

I'm just trying to understand when I ask "Why?"
to the four young Chicas with black-rimmed eyes
and sprayed up hair who're wilding the neighborhood

Mad dogging people, jumping over fences
to take wind chimes they don't really want
or need from the looks of their fresh Starter jackets
with silver stars shimmering off the back

I reach out & ask
get my hand back burned black

They fling the chimes to the ground
when caught, spitting "I didn't want them anyways."

When I ask why they say Fuck you, man! Fuck You!
Naw, Im just trying to understand

Why my Grampa doesn't like black people
Why he called my aunts friend
'nigger'
told her never to bring him into his house again

I imagine the look saying
"That's how we were taught in Tennessee,
we have our place and they have theirs
and it sure as hell ain't in my house."

No, forget that
Why should I
have to explain myself to you.

I worked hard all my life,
waded into warm Pacific waters
while the Japs killed my buddies all around me

I watched my oldest son lowered into his grave
before I grew old
& now you ask me this in my own house?!
Fuck You!

No Grampa
Im just trying to understand

Why I feel the twinge of hatred
after asking my sister if she's
going to keep the baby who's father is black

Wonder if the hatred is handed down
Wonder if I can cut out this cancer
given to me with my family name

When I ask that question
get my hand back burned black
the answer fuck you man

I say no man
I am just trying to...
just trying
trying to...

hold my nephew in my arms
my wet cheekbones alarm me
cause I'm afraid
afraid I'll drop him

He looks up at me
and I see in his toothless smile
that he has no fear
I see in his huge brown eyes
that he is
more than a color
more than a culture
more than any petty hatred

I see beyond all that
and I know I'm close
I know I'm beginning
to understand.