in parentheses

Carol A. Smith is an MFA candidate at Arcadia University. She writes personal and sociopolitical poems, often reflecting upon the intersections of the two. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Last Stanza and Radical Teacher. Carol resides in Southern New Jersey, where she teaches college composition

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Post-Racial Decorating

The antiracist journey
fills freshly dusted wooden shelves
with colorfully jacketed books,
spawns new thoughts and questions,
transforms vocabularies.
Mile markers of progress
on the path to enlightenment.

Until, in December,
we dust again, then stand back,
hands on hips, to admire red, gold
glittery ornaments. A fantasyland
of figurines and throw pillows.
Smiling from every corner, a jolly
brotherhood of white Santa faces

Approaching the Equinox

Workers in the field out back
stoop to pick yellow squash
in the afternoon heat
as a line of black mildew creeps
along the shower’s gray tile wall.
The dog’s droopy gold fur
hoods his eyes as he lies in the yard
and turns his head, like the sunflowers
you planted outside our bedroom window.
Stink bugs wait on the dried-out straw
Welcome mat, ready to sneak
in when the door opens.
Are you through with your summer love,
or do they now own half your heart?

Before Nice Racism Got Its Name

Pink polka dot bows wrapped
around high-on-the-head pigtails
bob their way down the aisle,
following a mother’s purple and gold
head wrap off the midtown bus.
Just the way Andrea’s bows used to bob
when she and her sister boarded
our school bus years ago.

When the bus passed the riverfront
red brick mansion, just beyond its row
of dogwoods, we’d turn down a dirt lane
that wound its way to five gray bungalows
where the Black families lived.
Then I’d cross my fingers and
crane my neck.

Bows bobbing up the school bus steps,
meant fun for me at lunch at recess.
Double-Dutch ropes slapping blacktop.
hips swinging, voices singing
Motown hits or hip-hop raps,
while other girls played whisper games
in the shade of the schoolyard’s
one large oak.

Mom said, You’re nice to play with those girls,
and I was grown before I considered that.

I thought of us this evening …

as I walked to my local bookshop,
recalling the time, years ago,
when I told our good friend Bobby
that I’d not read any Tolstoy,
and you scolded me on the drive home
for publicly parading my ignorance,

as I watched a young couple stroll by
in denim cut-offs and flip-flops,
unable to keep pace with the melting
of their double-dip chocolate cones,
her laughter too hard, his glances
falling anywhere but on her face,

as I met surprising resistance
from the bookshop door handle,
looked in to see the ceiling lights go out,
leaving one dim table lamp
to create shadows on the floor,
and noticed the CLOSED sign
hanging crooked in the window.

Old Dogs Barking
Inspired by “White Supremacy in 2023: Old Dog, Same Tricks,” an address delivered by Rev. Victor Gimenez at Arcadia University, April 11, 2023.

Easier to hear them from behind hooded robes
than draped American flags,

in the old question, Do you believe in Negro equality?
than the new litmus, Do you believe in BIPOC scholarship?

In the blatant battle cry, Our Race Is Our Nation!
than the deft deflection, No Culture of White Guilt!

Easier to spot them as wizards and knights,
than patriots and candidates,

as Ladies Of The Invisible Empire
than Moms protecting (white)kids.

With flashlights in dark woods
or blue light on digital screens,

same tricks.
Stay awake.

Ty Kendricks’ Ghost
Title inspired by, and language borrowed from the poem “Southern Cop,” written in 1936 by Sterling A. Brown

Officer Kendricks’ ghost still walks the beat
almost ninety years after that fateful day
his victim ran out of the alley.
Some days are just as hot, Ty’s just as jittery
and prone to make the same bad call.
I saw him yesterday with two fellow officers,
patrolling the neighborhood with vigilance.
One hand on each cop’s chin,
he jerked their heads left, right, and back
as Black kids ran by, squealing
and chasing each other with water guns.
He yanked each cop’s elbow when
a young Black man reached into the pocket
of his hoodie for a cell phone.
He squeezed their fingers on triggers
as a Black man ran toward an alley.

This morning, he stood at the bus stop, listening
to commuters discuss yesterday’s tragedy
as they drank lattes in to-go cups.
When someone said unfortunate,
he nodded in silent agreement.
When another suggested the cops
must have been scared, his lower jaw
relaxed, and he let out a deep sigh
that brushed the back of my neck.
Chilled, I stepped outside the shelter
to find a sunny spot and began
S
C
R
O
L
L
I
N
G

 s w i p i n g

click-deleting
click-dele
click-

searching for some safe story I could read
on the way to my brunch date. One that
wouldn’t include wailing Black women
and their moaning, dying men.

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