You leave the house and head to the gym. You ride the metro.You listen to some music. You read a novel                  try to act coollike you belong here      you’re so FrenchYou travel in the underground     going from side to side of the cityThe darkness helps    the white noise in a crowd                  The crowd must be thickor you will see your body                  raising suspicions by walking                                     you do not want thatBut then you get to another part of the city                  and re-emerge, and you’re hit with images againof yourself in the space, and yourself                  is two beautiful dark-skinned childrenjust innocently sitting on a bench waiting,not bothering anyone, just waiting &                  you want to weep because they are so beautifuland nobody should be wrong to beso beautiful in this world& that beauty lies there knowing that one day       it will liftitself from their bodies                  like a questionYou mourn the future loss of this being,so full in space, so occupying, so sitting before youon the bench. You re-emerge into this liferaising suspicions again.                                                                *They’re from Mauritania they say, brother and sister,     They sit there on a park benchalong the busy way &look at me      with doe eyes    a look of discoveryin the fine grain of skin, the perfect lines of teeththe stillness, as if no language had yet been made                  as if the first day on earth.                  They look into this worlddeciding whether to enternobody should be wrong to be                  so beautiful in this worldAnd he’s running right now…There he goes right now!                                                                *So you try      not to act too muscular       not to look too big                  muscular looks very threatening on your skinyou want to walk hard, jog hard, be hardbut today you think about your motheryou owe it to her to protect her from this     what you can do     what can be done to youyou’ve just come out of the gym      you feel fityou feel strong     you feel large and full of bloodbut you small up yourself     and keep going                  you read endless messages about your bodyyou’re consuming your bodyAll the images fill youAnd he’s running right now…There he goes right now!