His White girlfriend at the time passed the word

that the Gambles     of THE Procter & Gambles

who lived not far from her in Belmont

were away     on an extended trip to Hawaii

so Malcolm dressed up as a salesman

to check it out     According to the biography

they got away clean     with a pile of bed linens

and a case of Johnny Walker     It was 1945

My Dad was fourteen then      I asked if he knew

any Gamble relatives in Belmont      He squinted

said     maybe a cousin on the Sidney Gamble side

couldn’t say for sure     When I was a teen

I came home one night to find our back door

pried open     drawers strewn on the floor

My parents were away     vacationing in Maine

They said    call the police     I wielded a bat

to probe dark basement corners

When I went up to bed     the back door

still swinging     I found I wasn’t afraid     just

acutely aware    that the air in the house

had been altered      by the presence

of another     trailing through it

And what if Malcolm instead 

had looted my grandfather’s mansion

in Milton         A different Gamble    

no scotch     but plenty of silver    

and my grandmother’s jewelry

What if he had rifled his study

found the boxes      of eugenicist pamphlets

You Wouldn’t Let a Moron Drive a Train!!

or his correspondence      with Margaret Sanger

We do not want word to go out

that we want to exterminate

the Negro population 

and the minister is the man

who can straighten out

that idea if it ever occurs

to any of their more

rebellious members

How would Detroit Red have taken

to such blue-eyed devil talk

I can’t recall     what was gone

from our house that night    

and what is precious anyway   

when those possessions     don’t have the heft    

to build a home within our memory

and what are possessions anyway   

when his father died      crushed by a streetcar

and he was convinced the Klan was involved

somehow     and his mother languished

in a state asylum    and he juggled hustles

just to eat