Pigeon and Hawk
by Marilyn Nelson

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A new grad student far away from home,
I took every step on trembling ground.
I knew no one. Who were my friends?
The other black student in the program
ducked and rushed away when our eyes met.
Seminar rooms were full of hungry dogs
snapping up scraps of nodding approval.
At the end of a campus reception
I accepted the offer of a ride
from campus to my downtown room-with-bath.

October. Evenings were getting cool.
The walk over the bridge downtown
felt dangerously long when it was dark.
Did the young man who offered me a ride
tell me his name? What was it about him
that made me say Yes thanks, like a damn fool?
When we were in his car and he said oops,
he had forgotten something at his place
he had to pick up, and asked if I’d mind
if we stopped there, why did I say O.K.?

Did we talk during the drive? Was the radio on?
Did I just watch the businesses,
in thinning traffic, become a suburb
where his apartment complex was in a woods
already splendid in autumn colors
so beautiful they took my words away?
When he pulled up and said I should come in,
it would only take a minute, why did I go
upstairs with him, wait as the key unlocked
his apartment, and go inside?

The building was silent. A big window
in the living room looked at parking lots
with a few parked cars, and the glowing trees.
He said I’ll be right back, and disappeared
into the bedroom. I turned to the view,
thinking of nothing, my mind a blank page
that grew emptier as the minutes passed.
What was he doing during those minutes,
as I stood dreaming like a fat pigeon
in the keen purview of a circling hawk?

What could he have needed to go home for,
that was so important he had to go
there first, before he drove me home? Was he
wrestling with opportunity?
            Human horrors
are not inevitable. Some people stop
themselves, before they cross moral divides.
A drinking buddy might say Cool it, bro.
A cop might take his knee off a black man’s throat.
A young man might come out and say O.K.,
let’s go, and drive you home. What was his name?

"Pigeon and Hawk" by Marilyn Nelson. Used by permission of the poet.