A copper spoon 

that would have been polished silver 

slips from a mouth as wide as a watermelon smile 

revealing the imagination of a negro child 

that invents in pencil, pen and crayon black 

like a score from Porgy and Bess 

held together by a language that only the outcast speaks 

bazaar like segregation on paper 

 as bleached as falling  snow 

He knows his ivory canvas Is a delight of privilege 

stained with coal and pitch 

A plate goes empty 

exposing its livid hunger 

haunting  a reflection 

A copper spoon 

that would have been polished silver 

scrapes against a set chicken-bone teeth 

. . .  slides from between a pair of thick paper- bag lips 

His sweeping eyes 

staring into a T. D. Rice cartoon 

A delight of privilege 

that invents in pencil, pen, and crayon black 

bazaar like segregation in heaven 

springing from the graveyards of Dixie 

where the spook of Jim Crow shades 

stained with coal and pitch 

a score from Porgy and Bess 

held together by a language that only the outcast speaks 

A plate goes empty