White Lies: Another Poem
I wrote this poem when I was trying to catch some sleep in Charles de Gaulle Airport. I had just experienced an 11 hour flight from Johannesburg and everything around me was becoming whiter and whiter as I returned to Minnesota. I closed my eyes and could hear the conversations around me. It was the banal banter you’d expect in an airport. The interactions between white middle class parents and their children played as a chorus around me. A few lines popped into my head as I dozed off. I jotted it down into a poem.
White Lies
White shirts
White sheets
White shoes that don’t leave scuff marks on the gym floor.
When did everything get so white?
When you became a mother? When you became a wife?
White schools,
ones without crime, with good teachers and extra curriculars
White parents
with organic snacks and time to volunteer on field trips
and field days.
White Christmas,
with snow and gifts,
once a year in church,
and resolutions for more moderation.
White power,
with friendly police,
responsible choices,
long, healthy lives,
fortified isolation,
feigned ignorance,
polite conversations,
sterile politics,
two child fertility,
and all the other
white lies.
broken walls and narratives 