In one commercial, the token black mother
sitting with a table of friends at Chuck E. Cheese’s
doesn’t care if the mushrooms in the alfredo
are fresh, and she doesn’t need Chef Tony’s recipe.
She just wants to know if he’s married — for a friend.
In another, the lone black girl at the party
has forgotten the relationship between nut allergies
and peanut butter — she just knows her brownies are on hit.
With her stringy weave and badly mimed surprise,
maybe she thought her homegirl’s skin too porcelain,
so she fed her something that would stipple it with welts.
flailing and helpless in a room of shuffling feet.]
At a conference, I sip vodka straight and slip
into a green jumpsuit that looks — almost —
like January Jones’s at the Emmys.
Donika says: jewel tones are good for blondes.
In the lobby, a white man from my cohort holds me
aloft by my elbows, exclaiming: but you look great!
as if he’d opened a menu and found
a gluten-free version of desire: me,
wrong-colored and splayed like blood-speckled currency.
My breasts: two overripe apples in a food desert.
My pussy: convenient as an Epi-Pen — if you keep one around.
Bummer — for my friend, says the mother
when the waitress confirms Chef Tony is, in fact, married.
The choking girl says nothing; neither do I,
but I steady my gaze to meet the man’s
benevolent shock, each almost-word
a pollen-flecked stinger hiving my throat:
Trust me, motherfucker. I always know how it looks.
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