A White Co-worker Asks If My Family Sits Down to Have Frank Discussions about Race

I say we’re long-time investors in the business of caretaking, knowing where the shovel is and how many minutes it takes. asiatic lilies. Pavement markers/chalk lines spring into fashion every other week. Do disasters have other names? button poms. Newsmen love to strip a phrase to looting. To kill it quiet, you have to act like it’s easy as blinking or memorizing multiplications. 12 times 12 = 144 lashes. green hydrangeas. A professor asks me to write about the murmurations of starlings. But I don’t give a fuck about starlings or cranes or crickets. My world view is open enough to see scarecrows on fire, a roach on its back, rat-birds fighting over bone and wrapper. larkspur. You’ve received work bonuses how many times? gerbera daisies. In meetings my tone always contains drama or debris pressed down. I’m black all the time. I’m going off-site tomorrow. I’ll be sure to put my braids in a bun. swan wing tulips. Once at a college crossroad, a friend said the war between the states was unnecessary. Plantation owners were just waiting for financial stability. chrysanthemums. Some squad cars have mastered the slow pass, it’s like a rolling stop but amplified with bed bait bed bait and ooo-wee look at all that dark candy if your breasts are brown. if your breast are large and brown. palm fronds. Outtakes turn intakes if your black back is wide, sneakers wild, if you talk too tough, too smart, too loud. queen anne’s lace. oriental lilies. Fear is snapdragons. baby’s breath. pale carnations.