Is it all a lie?

at first

I wasn’t bothered by what I thought was

the truth

I accepted what I was told

and I looked forward to Santa Claus

and the Easter Bunny

White lies

I suppose

until I realized that there was more

lie than truth

dictated through the mouths of

white women, pink lipstick and

yellow hair

standing in heeled shoes and patterned dresses

against chalk-dusty blackboards

wrapping me in tales

like an old sleeping bag

comfortable and

well-worn

blankets traded for small pox

the picture in my mind’s eye of

pilgrims

smiling faces and dishes of corn

hens potatoes

i colored with crayola

the scene embedded in my head

brown for the indian skin

not red

the parts showing disease

and dead bodies and

stolen land omitted

still i remember the chorus of songs that every third grader

should know

stuck a feather in his hat…

oh, say can you see…

…and crown they good in brotherhood…

spacious skies, for amber waves of grain

cotton and sugar cane

biting into the skin of black hands

dots of red blood

they couldn’t have been okay with it all

right, Malcom? Martin? Rosa?

the only lessons inclusive in 1979

quietly whisper in yellow school buses

magnet schools M-F

Black faces

on cartoon characters

Saturday morning

i wish i were in dixie

mimicking the words and the shuck and jive

not knowing that it was all lies

meant to hold onto lies

heat boiling up under my skin

when i realized

women’s sufferage didn’t inclue my grandmother

my

grandmother

bright skin and curled hair

her father looked native, also she said

dna says maybe not

and i am just two generations removed

from when she could not pull the lever

if she dared to venture out

on election day

in alabama

and we have come full circle

the lies becoming truths

1965

was only 5 years before I was born

civil rights that we pretended

was our reality

eyes closed

my mother had to know

the truth

didn’t she?

Grandma knew

but maybe she was just relieved

that grandfathers let

Navy ships this time

transport them east

to west

where they didn’t have to talk about

truths

and even though I love to read

i see that hiding anything in a book

isn’t necessary

when we have become so damn good

at telling lies

that we hide from ourselves.