1.
At home I sit
and try to figure out
which race I should take on
for the privilege of being left
alone. Which race should I be
beholden to, where should I place
my loyalties?

At home I sit
and wrack my noggin
for an answer,
and there isn’t one.
I should stop, I guess,
but then I won’t know
where the bullets will stop me
or where the beatings will commence
and then stop.

At home I sit
with my twisty head in my
twisty hands and tell myself
that as long as I keep quiet,
no one will ever know. After all
they don’t consider it a problem
so why should I?

2.
I’m just a white guy to all others.
I’m just Indigenous to all others.
As long
as I keep a close eye on it and try
to think about it only at night,
alone, in my bed, whispering,
slightly fearful, slightly more
than a shrug away from it until
I fall into oblivion, I’ll be ok.

At home or abroad. At home
in a breathable bar or smothered in
the freshest of fresh air. They don’t know
or care about my faults or my stature.

3.
They don’t know about the thin line
I walk, always.
They don’t know about the illusion
I talk, always.
They don’t know why their stairs
are so difficult, change
so often, turn into laughable ramps.

I once knew a woman, an executive
at a formal luncheon,
who mispronounced
the name of a town in New Mexico
and tried more than once to correct me
and I stopped speaking with her because
I was more polite than she was.

If she stood in front of me now
I’d dig out her eyes, hold them up,
scream: “can’t you see?”

TBC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T