The World Is Round: Poems

“A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich”

98 “a hero aIn’T noThIn’ BuT a sandWICh” —alice childress In Atlanta two men and a high-rise building on fire. The one building it, who set it aflame, with his good hands, still on top pushed into its last heavenly corner. The other flying around, dangling from a rope dropped from a helicopter, his good hands desperately trying to reach. One Black man, one white. A tiny opening of air and the helicopter slips through the smoke. They peel out their open arms to each other. One of them wraps his legs about the other. It is a fireman’s way of rescue. In a loverly embrace they face each other all the way back down to earth. Once back on ground they are safe. Life gets back to normal. But I’m not ready for them to be safe and life as normal hasn’t worked in four hundred years. I want them to zoom the helicopter back up. I want them to lock their legs back tight around each other. I want the sight of them clasped there like a statement to answer something more than an accident. 99 Their bodies dancing down, their gallant purple hearts staring, iris to slow-dragging iris. Make the beautiful sight of that linger longer than highlights on the nightly news. Not one more feel-good story about one more local hero, patted on the back, only to be forgotten, only because he was only doing what he was only trained to do, nothing more, nothing else. But before they zoom back up, recategorize it. Call out what keeps us from each other’s daily arms what it is. Call hatred by its first name; a firestorm, category 1; the kind that burns whole countries down. And whosoever is flying the helicopter with all of us in it, apologize for the inconvenience but go ahead and announce that none of us can come down until every flame is out. ...