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Poem by Oluwatomisin Oredein
my nephew told my sister
that his unborn sister
will be white.
told, not asked.
I was on the phone with them.
I heard the hope in his voice -
it curled his tongue.
the shockwaves silenced my sister.
I’m usually a bystander
in this Parenting 101 course,
but I had to step in:
“no, buddy.
she might look a little lighter at first
but she’s going to look just like you!
just like you are so cute and handsome
she will be so cute and pretty!”
exaggeration works with kids
except this wasn’t.
“aren’t you excited that she
will have beautiful brown skin
like you?!”
my diction worked overtime
to fuse beautiful and brown -
she cut her hands from her rough
and seemingly impossible work.
the pause that followed nursed
dark anxiety,
held it close to its bosom.
centuries of thought and
millennia of fight
coursed and swayed in silence’s veins…
a generation, held in the balance
awaits his haunted answer,
and I do, too.