teach (2/19/02)
I am afraid of the water.
Cold, murky,
yet others play
freely.
Whether I jumped
or was pushed,
I don’t know.
But I do know
that if
I don’t drown,
I may learn to swim.
limbless (2/12/02)
Like the babies born without arms,
without legs;
can I teach them,
pretending they are whole?
Not Civil Rights,
the Kush Empire
or the three branches of government,
but “Please.”
“Thank you.”
“Excuse me.”
“Don’t hit when she hits you.”
“Sit quietly when you are cursed
–when he talks about your mamma.”
As he throws a tantrum over
not getting called on to read about
brown v. board.
“Shut up.”
“I hate you.”
“You look like a black monkey.”
Imagining they are whole
even as I watch them
dismember themselves.
***
For further reading: What ‘White Folks that Teach in the Hood’ Get Wrong about Education