The brothers got mad they had a right to having seen years of struggle nullified in twenty-three minutes of brutality and nineteen minutes of deliberation Suddenly Rosa Parks' sacrifice was rendered inconsequential for segregation was self-imposed and they stood together a tight mob, monochrome exhaling an air of violence poised, guarded and whereas before they would beckon me to join them to laugh and stomp today there would be no revelry And when I approached they shifted uneasily in their places averting their eyes from the Devil's gaze as Perseus from Medusa and only after I lingered on at the edge of that seething mass did the one best known to me step forward and say "we cannot speak to you today" and although I had known I was white every day of my life I had never before then realized what that looked like through the eyes of someone who wasn't