Fannie Lou Hamer
“I’m
sick and tired of being sick and tired!”
She sat across
the desk from me, squirming.
It was stifling.
My suite runs hot
but most days it
is bearable.
This student has
turned in nothing,
rarely comes to
class. When she does,
her eyes bore
into me with a disdain
born long before
either of us.
She doesn’t trust
anything I say.
She can’t respect
my station,
the words coming
out of these lips,
this face. My
breathing
is an
affront. It’s me, she says.
I never was this
student’s professor—
her immediate
reaction
seeing me at the
smart board.
But I
have a calling to complete
& she has to
finish college,
return
to a town where
she doesn’t have
to look at,
listen to or
respect anyone
like me—forever
tall, large
& brown in
her dagger eyes,
though it’s clear
she looks down
on me. She can
return—
if not to her
hometown, another
enclave, so many
others, where
she can
brush a dog’s golden coat,
be vegan &
call herself
a good
person.
Are you having difficulty
with your other classes?
No.
Go, I say,
tenderly.
Loaded
as a cop’s gun,
she blurts
point-blank
that
she’s afraid of me. Twice.
My soft syllables
rattle something
planted deep,
so I tell her to
go where
she’d feel more
comfortable
as if she were my
niece or
godchild, even
wish her
a good day.
If she stays, the
ways
this could
backfire!
Where is my
Kevlar shield
from her shame?
There’s no way to
tell
when these
breasts will evoke
solace or terror.
I hate
that she
surprises me, that I lull
myself to think
her ilk
is gone despite
knowing
so much more, and
better.
I can’t
proselytize my worth
all semester,
exhaust us
for the greater
good.
I can’t let her
make me
a monster to
myself—
I’m running out
of time & pity
the extent of her
impoverished
heart. She’s from
New
England, I’m from
the Mid-South.
Far from elderly,
someone
just raised her
like this
with love.
I have essays to
grade
but words warp
on the white
page, dart
just out of
reach. I blink
two hours away,
find it hard
to lift my legs,
my voice,
my head precious
to my parents
now being held
in my own hands.
How did they
survive
so much worse,
the millions
with all of their
scars!
What would these
rivers be
without their
weeping,
these streets
without
their faith &
sweat?
Fannie Lou Hamer
thundered what
they felt,
we feel, into DNC
microphones
on black and
white TV
years before
I
was a notion.
She doesn’t know
who
Fannie Lou Hamer
is,
and never has to.
by Kamilah Aisha
Moon
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