Incident (1925)

Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
     Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
     Keep looking straight at me. 

Now I was eight and very small,
     And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
     His tongue, and called me, "Nigger." 

I saw the whole of Baltimore
     From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
     That's all that I remember.