Fifty years ago I was a bead. One dot
of color in a live painting a thousand miles wide
or at least from Kentucky to the Carolinas,
three states or more.

I emerged and went to the place they sent me
wearing the right color shirt, mostly.
Mine had red flowers machine-stitched across
the front—I didn’t choose my own clothes yet.

I hoped to be an excellent bead, maybe the best
one ever. I was so still except for smiling,
twisting this way and that as I nervously
talked to the people watching on camera.

It’s what I remember from those years
more than anything else—one stone, one bead,
one bubble, shining at the world like a birthday,
like all our birthday candles and the fragrance
of cake. Look at us: art! Look at us.