Amoebaean for Daddy

I was a pretty baby. White folks used to stop My mother Just to look at me. (All black babies Are Cute.) Mother called me Bootsie and Daddy said … (Nobody listened to him). On the Union Pacific, a Dining-car waiter, bowing and scraping, Momma told him to Stand up straight, he shamed her In the big house (Bought from tips) in front of her Nice club ladies. His short legs were always Half bent. He could have posed as The Black jockey Mother found And put on the lawn. He sat silent when We ate from the good railroad china And stolen silver spoons. Furniture crowded our Lonely house. But I was young and played In the evenings under a blanket of Licorice sky. When Daddy came home (I might be forgiven) that last night, I had been running in the Big backyard and Stood sweating above the tired old man, Panting like a young horse, Impatient with his lingering. He said “All I ever asked, all I ever asked, all I ever—” Daddy, you should have died Long before I was a Pretty baby, and white Folks used to stop Just to look at me.