Maypie Tales - "White Like Me"

WHITE LIKE ME

They forgive me my alabaster chill.
They love me in spite of myself.
With smooth walnut bodies,
muscled and uniform as recruits in an army,
they embrace me.

I’ve never walked into a room where I was the only one.
Never in a store, classroom or street
have I been the only one.
White like an angel of the lord
who was white too
(it’s in a book)
am I smug in my majority.
All the angels on high—
the Seraphims and Heroines
in the missals of my upbringing were white like me.

So when they embraced me and held me tight
with arms that were brown,
I was fearful and senseless and tried to escape
until they closed my eyes to my minority.
Only then could I feel the weight of an arm across my breasts
and the breath in my hair and on my legs
and know it was good.

The hands that held me were warm as a counterpane
that encases a dream, and I became color blind and free.


This week's prompt for Maypie Tales

from Tess Kincaid at Willow Manor stumped me for a while.

Like the woodpecker frozen on the feeder with his beak aiming for the suet, I didn't know how to proceed. Then I went off on a thread and walked the wire inside my head. Maypie sometimes does that to me. I think that's a good thing.

Here's to a productive week to all you writers, editors, and creative souls out there. Here's to aiming for the suet that seems out of reach.