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Ways to Be White in a Poem

By Ailish Hopper

Tension makes
a form resound

and so the many lines I am told
not to cross

Do not go out alone at night
Do not call attention to yourself

Closer to the color line
the more I am
            White girl

fool

It is a while before
the other girls

correct me, gently. Good timbre needs
more air
          Shout out!

Muscles flex, quick-shift
          I stomp, impious

impervious, now

Do not dance suggestively
Hold a stranger’s eyes

That first day in the gym
I asked the row

                        Could I
             thinking
about cheers

elbows sharp, foregrounded

                   feet, cloud-
                                 stepping
Never of
                         A cheer

                        as the body
                        went up
As if I were.        Were not

             Branch creaking
Rope taut

And, maybe you, too---
whoever you are---reading this

flicker

Do not touch
Or eat

Their food
Do not drink

From the same cup
Added: Thursday, February 26, 2015  /  From" Dark~Sky Society," (New Issue Press, 2014). Used with permission.
Ailish Hopper
Courtesy to author.

Ailish Hopper is the author of the chapbook Bird in the Head (Center for Book Arts), and the book Dark~Sky Society (New Issues Press, 2014). Individual poems have appeared in APR, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Tidal Basin Review, and many other places. In addition to page poetry, she performed with the poetry band Heroes are Gang Leaders, and her essays have appeared in Boston Review, A Sense of Regard: Essays on Poetry and Race, and other places. She’s received support from MacDowell Colony, Maryland State Arts Council, and Yaddo. She lives in Baltimore.

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