Incident  (BY 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.