We know black boys won't survive
without role models, and we know all sons need

to avenge their fathers,
so John Henry's boy won't make it

off the playground without plotting
a future for himself and the train

that took his father. He'll study the masters
of vengeance. He'll remember

every line of Inigo Montoya's speech,
imagine himself standing in front of a train

and calling out to his enemy with a bass
deep enough to wake the ghosts in every mountain.

But like every good boy, he'll grow
beyond fairy tales, and the librarians will scowl

when he asks for more research on Hannibal
and the wars with Rome

and the general's promise to burn
the eternal city in his father's name.

He'll ponder if victory means breaking
an enemy's walls or making the enemy break itself.

He'll decide the republic died
not because of Caesar and Rubicons

but because republics always die
when they see a black face at the door.

He'll go further back in time and find Odin
smiling down on Vidar as the young god crushes

Fenrir's jaw under the boot crafted from all the orphan
leather on earth. The joy in snapping

a train in half will be a fleeting dream, though.
The boy knows too much now, knows it's useless

to claim one body and pretend
there will be a truce afterwards.

He knows the root of revenge
means to punish and to claim.

He knows only one payment
will buy his freedom

from the songs of his father.
He knows this war never ends

at the last strike or last puff of steam.
He'll take up Physics and Philosophy

and won't even flinch when he becomes the shade
haunting the lecture halls. He'll stay buried

in books, use every hour of the rented day
to find the end of every echo,

to reckon the speed needed to outrun blood,
to calculate the size of the hammer

he'll need to open a wound in the world
big enough for all the world to fall inside.