14

tootling delicate sweetness
Dolly Parton eight track 
hissing 'Coat of Many Colors'
generous hope and courage
crushing faith and poverty

country people smokin' their rural
simply beautiful 
proudly unpretentious
cruelly racist
viciously ignorant
swaggering toughness slurred into the afternoon air

'how you like those big black lips on you?'
these aren't my people

'how do you keep the grease off your clothes?'
this isn't my family

'I never thought I'd see the day, my daughter dating a nigger.'
you haven't seen ANY days

pinned by shame I am silent
shame that I am powerless
shame that I am weak

I hold only a small complicated sense of pride 
that I didn't correct him
that in his drunkenness he'd fabricated his worst nightmare
I let him rage
I let him show himself

I didn't tell him that my boyfriend was white