White girls can get stuck too,
the same way that no money
sandwiches you between two
slices of dreams you cannot bite
into, because we cannot pay for that
school—stuck like peanut butter.
I want things, but mostly
I want to be able to stay at the
university and learn so, someday,
I can teach others too.
Teach them to love good and
truth and not care that they are
not the businessman or engineer
with a steady job.
All they—all we—have to do
is be willing to clean the bathrooms or
flip the greasy burgers if we have to.
Hands that are working and honest
are always good hands, no matter
what they do.
When I tell people I love English
and writing, the man or woman instructs me
to pick something more practical—be a
technical writer, a reporter, an advertiser.
But I love my poetry, and no one can
ask me to sell my happiness
and design for a nice house and a
maid who cleans because hubris
has rusted my joints.
I am not a hero or a martyr
for words, but I am a woman
who would humbly scrub toilets to
feed her children, write poems at
night, and be happy.