In Scarred Sepia

Now a poor-white tenant farmer’s son declares war
on the educated single mother’s son born poor
who is president but blocked wherever he turns
by adversaries already in power. It is the same
as my father said: his father fought over jobs
in the marketplace of crumbs
warring with dark-skinned men equal under law
only after brothers clashed, waging civil war
over this earth stained then and still
by the blood of slaves and their progeny
who even now are called every foul name
under the sun by those who fear mirrors,
haunted by trees whose branches weighed
bodies remembered to bare such vision.
Look in your mirror, pathetic kinsmen, and see
history’s brutality delivered nightly to your dreams.

(13 August 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander