10 years ago
when black predominated
I knew who I was then.

If you can hold your gas when all about you
Are venting theirs and blaming it on you
If you can sip your tea while others watch you,
But make allowance for their slurping too;
If you can hang out clothes when skies are cloudy,
Or mouth a curse but don’t say it aloud,
Or being cut up, don’t give way to Audis,
And yet don’t look too tense, nor seem too proud:

“‘Tis a present for the King,”
declared the first blind crone,
“A two-mouthed serpent, a mighty thing
to drape upon his royal throne.”

We warmed to each other
grading freshman
writing exams
in annual three-day grinds,
me admiring
her conservative dress
and reserved smile,
but also the migraines

uprooted from antiquity,
it dwells in possibility
dreaming of a vanity
it will not know –

its crowdedness unmeshing
requires scythes for threshing
to keep it from enmeshing
Corsican sheep.