My Name Is Jane Crow

this is about being white in middle america, and not quite comfortable with either

The finger that caresses this paper

Is dark to its whiteness

But why this fortune

That this finger is like this paper

When we press hands?

 

The majority is not unlucky

We rule, control, believe democracy

Like the truce of Tet

We claim to have got beyond that

More than forty years—

slipping by.

 

And still I am richer, healthier, literate-r

I am statistic, as are you

Beautiful, my fathers are b******s

Of b*****d fathers, who lynch their brothers

And live in colourless mansions on beds of green,

A dark brown wallet (it would seem)

 

Our world is legion, is collage

Of camera not quite meeting

And centre fading

Let our grandma’s knit [us] together

Like they held us as rainbow babies

We’ll walk hand to hand, side to side

Leaving careless tracks on the ocean’s low tide

Reviews

[Andromeda]

beautiful