Brother It.

This is how it is,
it being something
that isn't vague,
that isn't nothing,

it that I can touch
with its rounded stony edges
and smooth gray gradient,
fading into the black background of night.

IT outside myself like a tumor
sitting on the front stoop,
a hardened jelly bean, a whitewashed child with a
too-pleasant face for a boy
not smiling with eager teeth,
but with lips and hair that has never
have never been rumpled

you use the wisps of it in essays
for fear the concrete
will be colored with neon chalk
by abnormal children, like me.