New Poem -- I, Too

I, Too

I, too, know why the caged bird sings,

But I only know it second hand

Like so many other histories

I can only experience in newsreels

And in books and in podcasts.

I, too, realize my arm's too short

To box with God, but instead of striving,

I concede and step out of the ring.

Where James Weldon Johnson

Chose to stand and fight.

I, too, select my own society,

But I keep it on the down low

Try not to fret about it in verse

As if doing so might legitimize

The act of hiding into saintliness.

I, too, have learned that April

Can indeed be the cruelest month

But I have a front door with a lock

So April has to stay outside

Where it can't come in and harm me.

I, too,  know the explosive power

Of deferring a dream past its sell date,

Of watching good meat spoil

All the while aware that my dream

Is a far different, far more entitled, one.

But, I, too, continue to write

Because of the little bits of all I've read

That remain to live in me,

Even if those remnants mutate

Into something less like the original

And more like me.