I wrote the following poem my sophomore year at Bridgewater State College (now University), when I was 19. I was taking a course at Boyden Hall on Tuesday nights called “Writing About Literature,” taught by a woman who was a reporter for the Taunton Daily Gazette. She was tough but fair and, like a journalist, she was thorough in her correcting style. I was also studying African-American Religion and Spirituality with Dr. Francine Quaglio, who had been on the faculty at Christian Brothers College in Memphis before coming to Bridgewater. Both classes have had a lasting impact on me – as a writer and a human being. As we explored Jim Crow America in the latter class, I started writing this in my notebook about a friendly man who sat near me in Lit class, whose smile I could always count on, regardless of whatever all-encompassing college melodrama was unfolding in my life at the time. And while I was wishing I could skip class, and certainly sometimes did, it was obvious he was rushing into Boyden Hall from a day’s work somewhere, after circling the lot to find parking and adding homework to his workload.

I had already left Catholicism when I wrote this, so when I refer to “God” it’s not mine, but the one that Christians are so quick to invoke, in a country where someone like me, who doesn’t practice religion, is ridiculed for being “woke.”

I think of this kind man so often.

Apology

Stanley’s in

my night class.

He greets me

every Tuesday

with the most

genuine smile

of the week

his brown eyes twinkling

like dark sugar.

One night

ad he read aloud Tennyson

my mind wandered

to a time

when literacy for him

was illegal.

When his body

purpled with bruises

and blood-stained

could be thrown

in a cell

for looking me

in my blue eye.

I’m ashamed of those

who wore my skin

and orchestrated

your demise.

I know nothing

of what you’ve endured

for to me

a white sheet

represents nothing more than

an innocent costume

I wore as a child.

So much wasted time spent pondering

the differences

between us

while our most profound similarity

is constantly ignored.

You and I

are both

children of God.

SEM, 1991