Indy 500


I put on my socks
one foot at a time
just like everybody else,

ten toes,
two feet,
twice the task

for a little boy.
The socks were nondescript
and made in America,

the toys
I played with
made of metal

stamped in the Midwest,
toy tractors,
toy cars,

Indianapolis race cars
fit in my small hand
as they raced

on the living-room floor,
winning the Indy 500
of my chicano race

as dad repaired cars
in the dirt driveway at night
and share-cropped the fields during the day

in the white man’s tractor,
black soil piled into rows
awaiting the corn, the maize, the cotton,

harvested
only now
in my mind,

disintegrating
against
the Turn Four wall.