Her Yoke is Easy

I love black people. I despise poverty. In extricating myself from the latter I am distanced from the former. I know better than to say “Fuck the ‘hood” but my sentiments are a mere euphemism. Acknowledging this truth triggers guilt. I want to renounce these feelings, attribute them to my faulty logic. When things go wrong I say, ‘If I was rich, this shit wouldn’t happen.’ In my mini tragedies, currency first comes to mind. Wealth not richesse (Chris Rock taught me the distinction; Ed Guerrero co-signed it) and how more money would buffer if not banish my problems. I don’t think this is productive. I don’t think this is true. I think I am confused. Auntie Barbara would say ‘cornfused’ or ‘flustered’. Hate is not a hospitable residence for me or any free black woman. Pessimism isn’t even enough for the birds: not the chickens that used to cluck on the corner of 125th and 2nd or the 16th St. pigeons that poop on pedestrian’s foreheads. So I take back my spite long enough to discard it and henceforth operate in repentance.