Love Story in Black and White
What the hell am I doing
hugging a white man in an apron?
I said it to myself--but out loud!--so that
he pushed me away slightly:
What did you say?
This was the first white man I had dated--
though I was sixty!
It wasn't only that I was holding
a body close for the first time
in years; not only
that he was white.
Our mothers' fears and angers--
heirlooms of slavery--
had hardened my heart.
Perhaps it was the apron. I had never imagined
a white man (not a chef)
come down to that order. Perhaps
the way he met me, beaming,
opened wide,
confounded my expectations
and undid me.
How lovely his body
as he bends to the wise tomatoes.
What does black
and white have to do with it,
our love that's lasted ten years?
Each act of tenderness
amends the violence of history.
hugging a white man in an apron?
I said it to myself--but out loud!--so that
he pushed me away slightly:
What did you say?
This was the first white man I had dated--
though I was sixty!
It wasn't only that I was holding
a body close for the first time
in years; not only
that he was white.
Our mothers' fears and angers--
heirlooms of slavery--
had hardened my heart.
Perhaps it was the apron. I had never imagined
a white man (not a chef)
come down to that order. Perhaps
the way he met me, beaming,
opened wide,
confounded my expectations
and undid me.
How lovely his body
as he bends to the wise tomatoes.
What does black
and white have to do with it,
our love that's lasted ten years?
Each act of tenderness
amends the violence of history.
Courtesy poets.org
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