poem
Volume 29, Number 3

Unlearning the Prejudice

Your skin reflects indigo, a river, blue-black.
Blindness is warmth. Flames grasp walls,
feel their way through.

Multi-racial inferno
burn history a mouth.
Tell what our breath says.
Make the intentionally deaf hear.

Brooks babble cheap talk.
Streams, shallow, blur.
But the precise edge of a razor
repeatedly falling on flesh
nevertheless finds blood.

Unlearn the prejudice.
Contemptible whitewash
covers textures. Use
a brush. Scrub.

Melting-pot multiplicity,
diverse humans
share truth. Let shame
slip away from faces
like fingers.

Drink glory, several
tributaries, rainbow-colored,
not designated.


—Stephen Mead