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Poet's Choice

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and if I had to wonder if he would have grown

up to be the kind of white man who believes

all blacks are thugs or if he would have learned

to bite his tongue or let his belly be filled

by shame, but more importantly, would I be

the kind of black man who believes silence

is worth more than talk or that it can be

a kind of grace, though I'm not sure

that's the kind of black man I've become,

and in any case, M, wherever you are,

I'd just like to say I heard it, but let it go,

because I was afraid to lose our friendship

or afraid we'd lose the game -- which we did anyway.

Here Hayes addresses black power in its most spiritual form -- that of forgiveness for the ignorant white friend who stupidly thought he could lob the n-word with alacrity. It's also a poem about friendship and history and the games we stand to lose if we fail to understand each other.

("Talk" is from "Wind in a Box." Copyright Terrance Hayes, 2006. Reprinted with permission of Penguin Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.)

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