BLACK SQUIRREL

Don’t run away from me,

I’ll be your ACLU friend,

and capture your gray brothers

in a have-a-heart trap.

and have a chat with them

about civil rights

and loving kindness.

Don’t mind them when they chitter

and guffaw like Southern crackers.

They have no KKK, and never heard

Billie Holiday’s rendition of Strange Fruit

or learned that Black Is Beautiful.

You both have the same bushy tails,

gnaw with sharp incisor teeth,

and scamper up and down trees

like circus acrobats. You’re more alike

than different except for the color of your skin.

Like all ignoramuses, grays are prejudiced,

and avoid their fellow black squirrels

out of fear of a stranger who is different.

They’re rooted in the earth and hunt

for nuts, berries, confer cones, flowers

and caterpillars just like you.

You both run from the same dogs,

circling hawks and predatory cats.

If you cut a black squirrel,

does he not bleed?

Why can’t you all be members

of the same brotherhood?

The enemy of your enemy has got to be

your friend.