Portside

Dear Miss Jeantel:

By Lolita Stewart-White

And I hate how she sings acapella,                                                                                                 

how notes ring out of her chest

and blast through the courtroom

like buckshot.

And I hate that she won’t be quiet.

And I wish the words written in cursive

that she can’t read will loop

around her throat and tighten

until she chokes.

And I hate the way she recounts

how Trayvon called his killer

“creepy ass cracka.”

And it hurts when her startled eyes

flit up because she can’t follow the questions.

And it hurts when the almost all-white

jury looks away.

And I want to be her in this moment

wearing a white, cotton dress

with white pearls and white teeth

answering the defense attorney’s questions

white and clean.

And I hate myself for loathing her.

And I hate  that my ranch house in the suburbs

that I own with my husband

with palm trees and a pool in the backyard

changes nothing about what white folks

think about us.

Lolita Stewart-White lives and works in Miami. Her work has appeared in the Iowa Review, Callaloo and Kweli. She was a semi-finalist for the Rattle Poetry competition as well as the Boston Review/Discovery Prize. Ms. Stewart-White has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Betsy Hotel’s Writers Room. Most recently she was the winner of the Paris- American Readers Series where she was invited to New York City to read at the Poets House with Mark Doty and Tomas Q. Morin.