Love song to a moving target

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He crosses life a dancing shadow flash of man

solo, says he likes that disconnected feel

of being rooted only to himself. A doer,

moving with talent in his bones

caution in his eyes, vision in his voice

speaking to young men of futures unimagined,

with possibilities beyond their fathers’ dreams.

 

A dreamer, color of Mandinka warrior,

quick tongued, urban cowboy,

fragile human dressed in hero’s clothes, for boys

who are invisible until there’s trouble, he will not

walk away from them, continues to pay a price so high

his ancestors sob within his dreams.

I’ve been in the bounty of his heart, held his ache

of somewhere just outside thought that will one day

crack the glass of the white-world’s pretend promises.

 

Older now, a gambler against the odds for all those boys

locked within dingy limits given to youths of their colors,

he’s always been a threat to some of rising into power,

a black champion they fear, warrior who wages change.

But for himself, his dreams wait, pieced together

out of remembrance and remorse, hidden

until he’s brave enough to reach for his own gold.

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Sharon Lopez Mooney, “Love song to a moving target”, in ‘Existere Journal of Arts & Literature', Issue 42.1, ed. Marlene Bernholtz, Toronto, Canada, 2023, https://existere.info.yorku.ca/editions/next-edition/