Echoes: Verse 3, Don Charles

Comfort
by Don Charles

When you looked and
          saw my Brown skin
Didn't it make you
         feel uncomfortable?

Didn't you remember that
         old blanket
You used to wrap up in
         when the nights go cold?

Didn't you think about that
         maplewood table
Where you used to sit and
         write letter to your daddy?

Didn't you almost taste that
         sweet gingerbread
Your granny used to make?
         (And you know it was good.)

When you looked and
         saw my Brown eyes
Didn't they look just like
        home?

Don Charles, twenty-nine (at the time this poem was published), lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was born and raised.  "My poetry reflects my personal experience as an unemployed gay black man trying to survive in a hostile society.  I'm sexually attracted to other men of color, and not ashamed to say so."

Charles, Don. "Comfort." Brother to Brother: New Writings By Black Gay Men. 1991. Essex Hemphill. Washington: Red Bone Press, 1991. Print.