"All white men to the back of the bus."
I deliver my sermon from the womb, 
like Solomon's child split in half;
like me ripped in half, 
like I spent nine months in Ghana 
not caring and ploughing 
that way through bodies screaming 
to be scattered in fragments-America . . . Ghana-
raging through my own blood 
like a psychoactive pill of Peace Corps
self-righteousness.
"Obroni, white man,"
the public transport driver is insisting,
"Obroni, you need to go to the front of the bus.
Mo ya. Mo ya.
The ride is long. The heat is bad.
Your skin is weak."
I feel myself building at this like a backward avalanche.
Suddenly, this man is not a television image.
I am suddenly not an objective observer,
an anthropomorphed anthropologist
stitched into a labcoat of sweat.
This is real.
I am here. 
"No fucking way, Obibini.
I'm staying in the back."
My rage projectile vomits 
epinephrine into my own heart . . . doompoom.
Where am I? 
"Djoco nyefi, you are a fool,"
I berate the man in Krobo and pidgin English,
doing everything right and everything wrong
all at the same time. 
"Fuck you, all white men to the back of the bus,"
I shout, half as mighty and twice as bleached
as a pillar of salt, I preach 
deliverance into air 
conditioned like a response.
CALL.
"White man, we love you": 
the crowd of Ghanaians cheer. 
"Motsumi kah," a woman whispers in my ear,
         
"Thank you, blafono
We love you.
We love America."
         
Where part of me still beats
born, cold 
Appalachian, 
where on Gatlinburg a tram descends into fog.
The blonde beauty and I hold hands as we fall.
Had an evening of ice-skating in the Smokies.
Had mountains covered for us to depth perfection with snow,
Soon the tram will amalgamate with her all too-expensive graduation car
And we will amalgamate with one another.
A chalet. Our flesh.
         
"I don't know about this Kofi,"
"Kwame, I know what you are thinking,"
The small Ghanaian boy pulls out the razor
to trim my toenails for me.
He stares at me with all the intensity of
defibrillator eyes. 
CLEAR . . . doompoom.
"Oh, Kwame, this is not
about me being black, 
this is about me being your friend."
"Kofi, no . . . I don't like this
It feels like you're being subservient."
"Kwame Dagan, I insist. 
Besides, while I work, you can tell me a story about America."
He smooths water into my feet-
ricepaper white and delicate-
ice in boiling blood delicate,
         
where my body rises to her occasion,
the blonde beauty,
as she massages into my feet
the oil of her composure.
"You are easier said than done":
I throw pillow talk-
Youthrowlikeagirl-
she told me once,
but outside of bed,
and unwhispered and now 
         
on the comfortable bed
she pushes chocolate syrup into my chest,
her hands like thousands
of tired men 
erect a pyramid
of whip cream on my stomach.
For centuries men will wonder where it all came from, I think.
The woman above me pauses.
"Dagan, It's all so rich. How do we deserve this?"
The fat and sugar sink into my body.
My stomach distends through the osmosis of privilege.
"Because," I tell her, 
"we're the protagonists of this story."
Copyright Dagan Coppock 1999