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.

Source: Poetry (June 2025)