AT HOME
N. SCHWARTZ
BY IRIS
I. “Have all your friends over.
Everyone’s welcome,” they said.
Tall Dora with deep coffee skin,
plump Sharon, café au lait,
Elyse, nearly translucent, freckled,
Lina, olive by June:
We combed a Barbie doll’s straight hair.
With her tiny nose, pale-Band-Aid skin,
and exaggerated hourglass shape,
she resembled none of us.
II. My parents hired painters
to double-coat all rooms of our house.
One year, the painter,
a slim black man,
took my mother up
on her offer of cold orange juice
on a blistering August day.
I prayed he didn’t catch her
placing his drained glass
in a corner of the sink, and,
later, washing it twice.
III. My father’s brother,
during coffee and pie,
whispered to my parents
tales of “Sambos” and “jigaboos.”
(I’d never heard these words, but
understood them in context.)
After he left for Long Island,
I asked my mother
why neither she nor Daddy
stood up to him.
“Oh, that’s just George,” she
batted the air.
“That’s how he is. What can you do?”
Gyroscope Review 16-4
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