even
on
ballots
we remain
big lips.
listless.
lazy.
LOUD. Stereo.
typical.
unintelligent.
un-American.
unimaginably.
unfit.
for a white house.

even after
entering earth
through a white womb
white privilege
is only recognized
when whole.
and he is only
half/Harvard
half/Columbia
half/Professor
half/Senator

while a perpendicular
politics
touts proximity
to Russia, Putin, and
another possible war...

I am asked
for my vote.

and I do

because
black skin
shed red blood
for this
once whites only
privilege
in a strangely silent north
and a deep south
where hoses
seared the hair from scalps,
dogs bit chunks
from the flesh
of freedom,
and hard hands
gripped the edges of
tomorrow
inside concrete
walls.

I vote.

knowing
I am
big lips
listless
lazy
un-American
unintelligent
and my meager
choice for change
may never matter
more than
Race does
may never matter more
than this race does...

© B. Sharise Moore, 2008