The Screaming Sheep

                                                    The whitest of white worlds

                                                    was in those pages.

 

                                                    The girls wore ribbons

                                                    in their blonde hair;

                                                    the boy’s eyes were blue.

 

                                                    And they went to an

                                                    amusement park

                                                    where no man with

                                                    whiskey-breath,

                                                    tattoos, locked

                                                    them in their seats.

 

                                                    Jane dropped her

                                                    ice cream cone on Dick’s

                                                    head; he huffed then

                                                    smiled.  It was just

                                                    more fun …

 

                                                    This book, the first

                                                    we learned to read,

                                                    was a primer for life

                                                    in safe, green suburbs.

 

                                                    The only colored man

                                                    we knew was the janitor

                                                    who called us  “ma’am”

                                                    or “sir.”

 

                                                    And we read without

                                                    questions, no hands

                                                    raised to doubt

                                                    these pictures.

 

                                                   But Dick and Jane died.

 

                                                   They died after fire hoses

                                                   and police dogs—when

                                                   our first black teacher

                                                   called the roll.

                                                         

                                                   She swore we’d learn

                                                   to read all over again,

                                                   think and feel,

                                                   never forget her face.