I remember white.

White on the walls,

White on the tables,

White on the people.

 

I remember the have-nots,

And how proud they were

Of the things they never had.

My grandfather’s old car,

Rotting in the dirt

Behind trees and tall grass.

 

“I bet you never knew that I had a job,”

The working man, wilting, said to me,

longing for the days before I was born.

Those were the days

Before the grass stretched out like tendrils,

And wrapped around his neck.

 

And I would search for questions to his answers,

Like searching for coins and old scraps of paper between

The dusty cushions of my great-grandmother’s sofa,

And coming back with a shotgun, ready to fire

Recycled rounds into his heart to make him happy.

 

The line between tall and short grass is not so clear-cut as it is in my great-uncle’s backyard

 

If it were, then maybe I would understand the grey caterpillar mustaches

Moving up and down over round, smiling faces,

I was only a small electric motor in a red RC car

That my aunt would release from her arms to run around the room,

Zig-zagging between Confederate monuments

As the soldiers and their wives ate macaroni and cheese.

 

I remember how my father would sit in his white chair on the white floor with his white teeth,

Trying to find his place in the brightness.

I wonder if the whites of his eyes were a comfort,

If the whites of their eyes flickered over him,

If the whites of my eyes were at peace.

And I still do not know,

Was his accent as thick as theirs?

There were many questions

that I did not ask.

Is there white in God?

Is there white in my father?

 

Where is the white in me?