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.