65. All That I Remember

In reading, there are some things that stay with you. Friendly ghosts* that you are never really without. This is one of mine. I found it in college, and have never forgotten it.

INCIDENT
by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.



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"Ghosts" trope borrowed from Kismet.