“A Quilt by Great Grandma No. 2” © Bonnie Matthews Brock

 

Do Not Turn Back the Clocks

When I moved to Flushing, New York,
I felt like I had arrived at three-years old.
There was a horse around the corner
In a corral, and two blocks from my home
There was the Pony Corral, a place you
Could ride a horse for ten cents.
There was a bar attached to the corral
Where the man whom I thought was my uncle
Was refused service because of his color.

Irene lived across the street.
She didn’t mind my brown color,
Because she knew I was white
And kissed me long on the lips.
Her father sent me home,
But also said if that man
Is your uncle, you’re not white,
Though I knew a small percentage
Of his ancestry was mine,
As even my father who is white
And used to refer to blacks
As colored was 1% African.
Half the world hates ancestries
They don’t know they’re part of,
As the Mick, the Pole; the Pole, the Mick.
You get the idea, unless you won’t.

 

Michael La Bombarda is a poet and fiction writer. He is retired and lives in New York City. His books are available on Amazon.

Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, as well a school psychologist. She loves hiking the urban and woodland trails of “anywhere” (and pausing often to shoot photos) with her very patient husband (and often collaborator), Ted. Her images have been featured on the covers of magazines such as Ibbetson Street, Wild Roof Journal, Poesy Magazine, Humana Obscura, and Arkansas Review; as well as on the pages of publications such as Oddball Magazine, Ember Chasm Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Beaver Magazine, and Lateral. Her works are archived at institutions such as Poets House NYC, Brown University, and Harvard University.