In the evenings, after we've put the kids to sleep,
my husband and I go to our room,
close the door and stand next to each other,
companionably folding the laundry.
The kids' small socks and shirts fall
from the sheets we untangle from the basket.
This is not the love I imagined, but it's who I want to be.
Though I wonder sometimes. Like everyone.
It took Peary eighteen years to reach the Pole,
and some think he stopped thirty miles too soon.
One morning a friend stood at his door and watched a deer
charge past his house in Ann Arbor. Its hooves on pavement,
a hard sound. Where could it have come from?
Leaving the city, heading for the hills at the edge of town.
A mild Tuesday, breaking into green. There. Not there.

--Susan Hutton

Copyright © 2005 by Oberlin College. May not be reproduced without permission.

IMPLICATIONS OF COLOR AND SPACE

That isn't what happened, for we kept climbing up,
rammed earth and stones stuccoed and white-washed,
but the gates stayed closed while we kept on wearing
our bodies, not thinking what we'd do if they came
unbuttoned after standing for days without sleep,
after beatings, accusations about our secret code.

How much does the state weigh? The courts of justice?
The machines and the factories--how much, all of it?
And don't tell me you don't know, take a day
to think it over, then tell me how much.
We thought how we would answer such questions
as we went on mounting the hill into the white city.

Song surrounded us: small birds in small cages above us
on the balconies, water in the tinkling gutter, bicker
of magpies, broom rasping the cobblestones: I did it.
But blue escaped the morning glory climbing beside us,
from cobalt doors, washed over potted plants and steps up,
and suddenly the past swept on to somewhere else.

--Mary Crow

Copyright © 2005 by Oberlin College. May not be reproduced without permission.

WHILE IN NORTHERN JAPAN

Japanese girls torment me.
With chirpy, unfortunate English,

They ask,
From America?

Hip hop very like.
My body is news of their arrival.

They've landed in America, they're sure,
Because the static across my body has cleared

And I'm blacker than they'd imagined.
I hardly look at them.

Other black men run
Into the tendrils of their gardens.

They don't see Medusa's helmet there,
Tossed and eaten through.

--Kevin Simmonds

Copyright © 2005 by Oberlin College. May not be reproduced without permission.