They
sat upstairs at the movies,
we
sat down.
They
sat at the back of the bus,
we
at the front.
At
the A&P they had their water coolers,
we
had ours; side by side they were
clearly
marked White and Colored.
They
had their bathrooms,
we
had ours.
They
had their schools and
we
had ours.
They-we-they-we-they-we
separate
not necessarily equal
bur certainly divided.
You
didn’t ask why;
it
just was, until
someone
heard
the
weeping from heaven.
This
is another in a series of poem about growing up in the South, suggested by my
friend Nancy Rosback at A
Little Somethin’.
Photograph: Trolley, New Orleans, circa
1955 by Robert
Frank.
