My Grandfather's Eyes
There are two portraits on a wall in the foyer--
Two grandparents I’ve never met,
Two personas I must create
From brushstrokes and faded pigments.
And it’s yours, Grandpa, that troubles me.
You seem to smirk at me, forcing a feeling
I know you would never have offered me.
Your superficial warmth doesn’t fool me,
Can’t hide the ash on your dusty frame.
I hear you hated the “colored,”
That you didn’t exactly embrace civil rights.
So, Grandpa, I must ask you,
What has my Aryan complexion done to
Earn your distaste?
Is it my bulging gayness or the rainbow
Branded on my forehead
Like a big, golden star that
Dims your irises to shadows?
Should I weep at your world,
Abhor my broken cross?
My blood-stained Bible all ripped and torn.
Or would it be enough to search for help,
A cure for what is certainly an epidemic of hate?
Medicines and blasphemy
Coursing through my lusty, red veins.
Well, I’m sorry, Grandpa. That cannot be.
You are only a frame and you can’t singe the flesh
That taints your family name.
Maybe if we could only sit over a table of
Communion bread and cheap wine
I could make you love me.
But such aspirations are as fake as our ties
Through your confining glass wall.
So douse me with your big, black ignorance,
Repair me of my sin.
All I will ever see is your brutish, black eyes
Smashed in.
Two grandparents I’ve never met,
Two personas I must create
From brushstrokes and faded pigments.
And it’s yours, Grandpa, that troubles me.
You seem to smirk at me, forcing a feeling
I know you would never have offered me.
Your superficial warmth doesn’t fool me,
Can’t hide the ash on your dusty frame.
I hear you hated the “colored,”
That you didn’t exactly embrace civil rights.
So, Grandpa, I must ask you,
What has my Aryan complexion done to
Earn your distaste?
Is it my bulging gayness or the rainbow
Branded on my forehead
Like a big, golden star that
Dims your irises to shadows?
Should I weep at your world,
Abhor my broken cross?
My blood-stained Bible all ripped and torn.
Or would it be enough to search for help,
A cure for what is certainly an epidemic of hate?
Medicines and blasphemy
Coursing through my lusty, red veins.
Well, I’m sorry, Grandpa. That cannot be.
You are only a frame and you can’t singe the flesh
That taints your family name.
Maybe if we could only sit over a table of
Communion bread and cheap wine
I could make you love me.
But such aspirations are as fake as our ties
Through your confining glass wall.
So douse me with your big, black ignorance,
Repair me of my sin.
All I will ever see is your brutish, black eyes
Smashed in.