Poem: September 13, 2021

Commitment

I get that my whiteness

is in no way a burden,

and I’ve no right to think

it’s anything less than a boon

that daily, in this time and place,

makes my life easier,

at work, at Walmart, 

in my neighborhood.

I acknowledge the cruel truth

of the doors I’ve walked through

on my downhill slant when

others can't do the same.

And while I feel shame and

frustration about the ways

in which my race has fixed

the game, I also know this

isn’t about my feelings,

and this isn’t about me.

I am not the center. 

How could I be?

Nothing I could suffer,  no fight 

I could ever fight could ever make

right  the past or make heavy 

my light side of the scales.

But my whiteness can 

be put to use, my whiteness

can learn and listen to 

hard things, my whiteness

can start to see truth 

in a broader mirror, 

my whiteness can be less

Comfortable, more vulnerable,

more aware, more able

to serve others, to serve

especially, to better serve

the students in my care.

Poem: September 10, 2021

Cruel and Unusual

Something’s really not right

with my stomach today.

It’s boiling, bubbling, burping,

squishy like a bladder

that I’m trying not to squeeze, 

then squeezing with some

immediacy

because I am in the middle

of class, in fact, of

a series of classes that

stretches interminably 

across a sweaty landscape

toward a distant horizon

and I’m in charge of this caravan,

bouncing on this swaying,

gurgling camel’s back,

holding tight with my thighs,

hoping to control an unruly beast.