The terrorists must have been off duty
Or maybe they were sleeping peacefully
Under awnings in terrorist country;
Unmindful of the American summer,
And of colorful Coney Island
With the naked backs that stand countless in
The photograph, circa 1938.
Replacing the sand on the Island’s beach
All of Brooklyn went to the beach at once
In those days - with the would-be terrorists.
And there were no daily color codes used
To show the levels of threat and warn
of the danger of everyone at the beach at once.
Fuck with Brooklyn if you dare to try.
Hitler’s war was brewing on the other side
of the Atlantic. “Iraq” was still called
Mesopotamia, Osama bin Laden
Was yet to be born, and blacks would not be
Seen amongst the multitude of whites on
the beach at Coney Island.
Kelechi Okere is a Nigerian-born student in the writing track of
the graduate English program at Rutgers-Newark.
