Flipping the Bird

Holding his stare in mine, I flip the bird

at a grown man

on a stool in front of the street bar

on the left shoulder of  Red Hills Road

where big aluminum pots with crab, or soup

tell you when its Friday, or Wednesday.

He’d just pssst and winked at me—

a 12-year-old in the back seat

of a Buick Skylark

being driven by my Chinese stepmom.

Couldn’t be my hair

—hot-combed for graduation

styled in two limp pigtails

and a too-big bang

my teacher christened a bang-ga-rang

so, of course, me being a kid

I flip the bird at him, telling him

with my eyes, what the finger says.

Don’t think my stepmom—eyes on the road—

sees him, or me, flipping out

and flipping the bird at him.

Don’t think she hears him, flipping out

how a little “black gal” like me

pass mi place, damn renk an’ fiesty.