FLOWN ON ANECDOTE*

the wind

has caught it

carried it

allowed it

to spread

its storied wings

wide, to travel

across time

and history

soaring 

high above

the terrain

of shame below

that has been so

unbearably

burdensome

that white flight

has been the only way

to escape 

the brutal truth

that’s indelibly

etched

in earth’s

ebony flesh

the wind of change

won’t and can’t carry

story that way no more

*title comes from How To Be An Antiracist

THE DISCLAIMER

1.

a river in Egypt

2.

yes, the milk

is mine

and white

but I did not

spill it, and these are

not my tears

3.

a bridge in Alabama

RAISED FROM THE RELIEF

Invisible

and blind

to his surrounding

climate,

the pallid

spook of a man

one day

lurches forth

from a blizzard

he’s been in

and has worn

like a winter’s hibernation 

all his

somnambulant life.

Privilege.

Advantage.

Raised from this relief,

like a dead man

from a crypt,

awake and more alive

than ever before,

he now sees

his own whiteness

as an oblivion

he must make peace with

and never return to again.

EGG TOOTH

Maybe what is happening now

is Turtle Earth,

buried in its sandy brood

for too long,

is waking up again.

Maybe its egg tooth

has grown back.

Maybe it is chipping away

at its leathery shell

one more time.

Maybe the incubation period

has come to an end again.

Maybe all the chaos

and cacophony right now

is just Turtle talking to itself

like it does when it is time to leave

its underground nest.

Maybe it is saying:

climb, claw, dig.

Don’t stop.

Do not rest.

There’s no time left.

And maybe once above the surface and breathing

its first true breath in a very long while

it begins to crawl toward the sea,

toward the great water,

toward the moonlit horizon.

Only one in a thousand  

mature, survive.

Maybe we are the ones

in need of an egg tooth right now—

to free us from our own arrogance and oblivion.

WHITE NOISE

A dog in the back of a parked pick-up.

A dog on the street with its owner.

One is high up, 

the other is down low.

One roams free in the flatbed, 

the other is on a short leash.

One is big with fine fur, 

the other is small and shaggy.

Each is a different breed.

The moment they see one other

all hell breaks loose: rage erupts.

They flash their fangs.

They bark incessantly, uncontrollably.

Charge one another.

Each turns rabid.

Each could kill.

This is just what dogs do.

Why all of the frenzy and fuss

from a common species?

Is it because they are not

the same breed, height, or size?

Because shackles

and a master are involved?

There’s no way to know for sure.

Maybe Mother Nature

or animal instinct are to blame.

Or perhaps it is even more basic than this.

Maybe it’s difference itself

that’s the problem:

the very presence of an “other”

is what creates the commotion.

Humans do what dog do but better—

with far more subtlety and subterfuge

and much less noise.

Like the noise beneath these letters,

that almost goes unseen.

The noise behind all the inky blackness.

A noise as white as cotton.