At Trader Joe's in South Pasadena
for Zelma Lee
What America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
~Allen Ginsberg
With Safeway and Southern Avenue decades behind me, dear
grandmother, I search for you in aisles of Trader Joe’s instead.
As I pause to savor chipotle smoked salmon and sample
a polite slice of plum, I swish the summery white around
and wonder, would you scoff at their under seasoned hand-
outs too prideful to sip free offerings in communion cups.
Would you ponder the entire countries pre-cooked and pack-
aged into colorful plastics. Would the bottled up beauty, curds
and curried simmer sauces shimmering in mason jars perplex
your syrupy Texas tongue. Would your Sunday dress you’d
saved for shopping shame you now, fail in the shadows of
the thin, bleached teethed, blonde ladies clad in Lululemon
athleisure, armed with affirmations and mantras of the day.
Would you think them no different than the doctor’s wife
you’d cut down from a chandelier as a maid. This is what
you learned white women to be: Free to string themselves
from crystal nooses. Whose paler lives the golden age deemed
worthy of being served and saved in silence, while you prayed
away hollers from u-turned pickup trucks each time your dusk
bus was delayed. Would the shoppers’ faces mirror those rear-
views, make you hurried, worried this is a sundown town too.
At checkout my cashier appraises me in smiles, approves my
weekly organics, fair trade coffee, wine. Would you’d dreamed
in all your colored days this sanguine white girl working for me
instead now. Exiting, I glimpse your high cheekbone reflection
shining back in the sliding glass and as I step outside to catch
sunset, swear I hear humming this little light of mine, let it shine,
let it shine; our silhouettes swallowed under a marmaladed sky.
What America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
~Allen Ginsberg
With Safeway and Southern Avenue decades behind me, dear
grandmother, I search for you in aisles of Trader Joe’s instead.
As I pause to savor chipotle smoked salmon and sample
a polite slice of plum, I swish the summery white around
and wonder, would you scoff at their under seasoned hand-
outs too prideful to sip free offerings in communion cups.
Would you ponder the entire countries pre-cooked and pack-
aged into colorful plastics. Would the bottled up beauty, curds
and curried simmer sauces shimmering in mason jars perplex
your syrupy Texas tongue. Would your Sunday dress you’d
saved for shopping shame you now, fail in the shadows of
the thin, bleached teethed, blonde ladies clad in Lululemon
athleisure, armed with affirmations and mantras of the day.
Would you think them no different than the doctor’s wife
you’d cut down from a chandelier as a maid. This is what
you learned white women to be: Free to string themselves
from crystal nooses. Whose paler lives the golden age deemed
worthy of being served and saved in silence, while you prayed
away hollers from u-turned pickup trucks each time your dusk
bus was delayed. Would the shoppers’ faces mirror those rear-
views, make you hurried, worried this is a sundown town too.
At checkout my cashier appraises me in smiles, approves my
weekly organics, fair trade coffee, wine. Would you’d dreamed
in all your colored days this sanguine white girl working for me
instead now. Exiting, I glimpse your high cheekbone reflection
shining back in the sliding glass and as I step outside to catch
sunset, swear I hear humming this little light of mine, let it shine,
let it shine; our silhouettes swallowed under a marmaladed sky.
The Fairlies selection in each issue of West Trestle Review features a reprint poem or story written by a woman of color or non-binary writer of color and published at least one year ago in a print-only publication.This poem originally appeared in The New Guard, 2019
S. Erin Batiste is the author of the chapbook, Glory to All Fleeting Things. She is a 2020 Crosstown Arts Writer in Residence, 2019 Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Scholar in Poetry, Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow, and her other recent honors include fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Mastheads, and Brooklyn Poets. Batiste is a reader for The Rumpus, and her own Pushcart, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net nominated poems are anthologized and appear internationally in wildness, Paper Darts, Peach Mag, and
Puerto del Sol among other decorated journals.
Puerto del Sol among other decorated journals.
Art: Molly Dunham