Her face is like leather
blackened beyond darkness.
The blazing sunlight
only brings lines.
Each day she
collects the cotton
for the man who is
white as snow.
White cotton
for white as snow.
Scars from
a thousand years
of servitude.
Blood from the
thorns of the fields.
stain her clothes.
but inside her heart
lives a light
a tiny glimmer of hope.
Not for herself
but for her children
and their children.
Where the color white
is just another
shade of rainbows.
And freedoms dance
is a right not a gift.