Melba Joyce Boyd has published 9 books of poems, including Death Dance of a Butterfly (2012, winner of Michigan Notable Book Award). Distinguished Professor and Chair of African Studies at Wayne State U., she wrote Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Broadside Press (2003) and edited Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall (2009). She is co-editor (with M. L. Liebler) ofAbandon Automobile: Detroit City Poetry (2001).

“It Could Have Been Me”

for Trayvon Martin
by Melba Joyce Boyd

“If I had a son,
he would look
like Trayvon.”

He is hand-
some. skin
the color

of coffee,  
cream and
cinnamon.

slight of build,
with a physique
yet to become,

he is shrouded
under hooded
myths and

shadows
of white guilt.

grasping
fists, armed
with a

package
of rainbow
colored candy,

he is stalked
while striding
across grounds

of a gated
compound;
targeted by

imaginary fears
enforcing  
Americanism.

How does Trayvon
stand his ground
when he steps

beyond borders
of the reservation?

How does youth
walk away from
death aimed
at his back?

What can a
black boy do
when the man
with a gun
comes?

“It could have
been me,”
the President
said.

“It could have
been me…”