Rashi & Me

I am the whitest white bread, suburbian, middle class, nuclear family male
To grace the cover of a small, startup, 35 billion dollar, cellular phone, Computer chip drone company’s portfolio.
I drive in my sports car with my Ray Bans peeping out my sunroof,
Dogs woof, kids stand aloof,
Can’t believe this white man’s groove is blarin’ so loudly, obscenely,
Serenely I drive through the town to my comforting downy soft, pillowed loft, air conditioned, refrigerationed, tv-stationed home.

I live with two other similar pale units on the west side of the highway
Separating the just and unjust, blessed and unblessed, rich and poor.
But there’s more to this story than my well-bred stock.

He is the ghetto gutter gamblin’ gangsta from a long line of the criminal sort Dealin’ supplies to snort with a chortle through a frontal portal if you so desire.
He’ll light a fire to his laced cigarette, load up his alcohol wet mouth with a codeine, high flyin’ remedy
And start reelin’ off explosions of curses, free verses of rhythms sublime.
Tomorrow’s headline may have him holed through with supersonic lances,
His shootout romances one too many.
For every penny he sold was the future of million dollar boldness to harness the promise of riches and excess, and prowess, and progress,
And lifeless he lays,
And solace is mine
For what I left behind in the back of my throat.

But we are not dead yet.
We are the oddest odd couple on the surface of your shallow pond.
The bond we share cannot be expressed in words, winks, glances, looks,
books, paragraphs, telegraphs, phonographs, or other un-rhyming forms of communication.
We are friends.
We are brothers,
Enjoying one another’s company, poetry, comedy, parody,
United in this time we share.
I’m aware of the fragile beauty formed there in that place we meet,
In the meals we eat,
In the journey of the street to the door of his beaming, dilapidated house.

I pray for him.
I pray that the chains of addiction will be broken,
That the bear trap of poverty will be loosed and left as a token reminder to give back to the community.

I pray for me.
I pray that I will see the true brilliance shouting from within,
Underneath his sweating, black skin,
That I will not run away,
Be dismayed,
Hide my head in the sand when it’s time to stand and speak vulnerable words
Forged in the heat of late-night wrestlings with the Angel of God.

I pray for us.
I pray that our brotherhood will grow stronger,
That division will hover no longer,
That we will be joined by other koinonia bridges across the highway.

We’re on the road today,
A combination couple so bizarre to the mouth you left ajar.
Don’t worry and fret.
He hasn’t kidnapped me yet.
We’re together in our common originality,
Just Rashi and me.