So Long as We can Say

"This is the Worst"

The worst is not
      when someone shouts, "Nigger!"
or "Poor White Trash!" or "Black Lezzie!"
      or burns down your tenement
or paints "QUEER!" on your new car
      or sends insinuating letters
to your boss,
      or comes for the eviction.

Those times quicken our sense of worth,
      spark righteous indignation.
Those are the times
      our liberal friends like,
so they can vicariously
       bloat our pain
all the way back
       to their quiet studies
or freeze us eternally
       into something beautiful,
in a painting or a poem.

Those of us who can fight back,
      who can tell the bombers
"We won't recant,"
      who can face the snarling dogs
or the heckling children,
      who can elocute shared dreams,
are the lucky ones.

Unwittingly we obscure
      the harsher truth
that for most folks
      injustice won't go away,
but sticks around
      like a withered limb
or a human vegetable.

"Time Stood Still" Photograph by Brian Ferguson