They said i was an alternate,

so I thought like an alternate
Answered black when asked
 
where is the nearest bathroom,
guilty
 
as charged when
the barista called the name
 
I made up, only
half-expecting judgment
 
My new way
I mostly liked
 
until the bailiff said, “silence
your cellphones”
 
or “you have
the right to remain silent,”
 
to which I felt compelled
to raise my right hand

Paul Strand. Photograph: New York, 1917. Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

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Nathan McClain is the author of Scale (Four Way Books, 2017), a recipient of fellowships from Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Frost Place, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and a graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers. His poems and prose have recently appeared or are forthcoming in New York Times Magazine, Poem-a-Day, West Branch Wired, The Common, and upstreet, among others. He teaches at Hampshire College.

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Issue Twelve