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The
Bench
Time twists and curls
As seconds followed by minutes
Creep slowly by
As the scene unfurls
I realize there was no point in me asking why….
You felt so comfortable so at ease in your world
It was your world wasn't it ma'am
So comfortable, clean, and fresh
Safe and non-threatening,
Classical music like rain
Pours
Down
From
Above
I can see that your years are many ma'am
From the whiteness of your thinning hair
To the map of purple veins pumping life's liquid
Through your wrinkled and nearly transparent skin.
Shopping done…
Awaiting your husband….
What thoughts flow through that
ripened cranium?
What have you been taught by all those
Changes all those years?
Did they multiply your knowledge
or increase your fears?
Ahhhh your bench is your center of serenity
There all alone
But ahha you have left a spot open, free
Vulnerable to my as you will…. "Intrusion"
An alien intrusion if my guess is correct
Into your world.
A world all to familiar to me
Isn't that always how it is though?
Your world so painfully clear to me
My world so distant, dangerous and preconceived by
you.
Your world so familiar at times
That I could almost predict the scene about to take
place
The roles we as strangers
Were about to play
As if the script we had both studied together
For years
We have both played these parts before
Parts as common to me as must
be to you.
Because you acted
right on cue.
As I lowered myself into that open, obviously not so
available spot beside you.
To
Rest my weary legs as you had chosen
To do
Is it the millions of images
You have been fed
By television that caused the neurons
To fire in your head.
Shooting responses to your wrinkled
Hand
And
Grip your purse as if the very presence of a
Blackman
Beside you would suck vacuum like every belonging of
value from your grasp
A response that never quite made its way
Through your conscious thought realm
Just the trained reaction when a person of color comes
into
"Your" space
Why does this action even evoke in me the need to write,
record objectify
My feelings?
It's not the first time
As I've said I've played this part
Many times before.
Slipped into the role with the
Slippery ease
Of a
Habitual disease
Once the feelings of rage anyone accused of a crime
they did not
And would not commit subside from every
Atom of my being
A few seconds of pity for you
Spill
Down
My
Spine
Only to be quickly replaced by images of tearing that bag from
your wrinkled hand
And
As classical muzac pours
Down
Like
Rain
From
Above
Emptying the contents
Onto the cool marble floor
And knocking you to the ground,
Then carefully reaching over your limp body
I pick up your belongings
And place them in my pockets
And as cautiously
As I lowered my self in to that
Vulnerable, open obviously not so available spot beside
You
To rest my weary legs as
You had chosen
To do
I rise and silently
And slowly
I exit
Your world.
©
Alexx Thompson
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