by Scot Siegel
I had a dream
we were sweating bullets
Oakland. 1973
soul-music-afro-sheen
Nixon. Panthers
Grandmother
Didn't trust
blacks
Called them
shvartzes --
*
Twenty years
grandma dead
Now I wonder how
she would have cast
Her ballot:
white/black
Bush administration
says fear
Is our greatest asset.
Waged war
For war's sake.
Said:
be afraid
*
Today, I keep
pinching myself,
Wanting to believe
my grandmother
Lied. I pinch myself
until I bleed
Black blood
blood of our brothers
Blood of our sisters:
Black. Brown. Yellow. Jew --
Blot my eyes
with the rest of you --
Overcome, and
wet with joy
Scot Siegel is an urban planner and poet from Lake Oswego, Oregon where he serves on the Lake Oswego City Planning Commission and the Board of Trustees for The Friends of William Stafford. His first full-length poetry collection Some Weather is forthcoming in 2009 from Plain View Press.
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