Pink Triangles by Larry Wayne Johns
After midnight. Drunk.
Too young for the clubs,
I was hanging near the enterance
to Piedmont Park. A Silhouette
stepped out of the shadows,
bummed a smoke, asked me to follow
into the woods. I ignored him
as a group of kids, my age,
came strolling down the street.
The man was whispering
Come on, let's go.
He stared to ease back
the way one might
back away from a growling dog.
I heard it before I saw it
dangling from from one boy's hand --
the aluminum baseball bat
scarping pavement.
Now, whenever I step
over a pink triangle
along the sidewalk in Midtown,
a number inside it tells me
how many of us have been slain.
And I think of that man, that night,
that way I ran for my own life.
I think it's time to stop running.