It was to my amazement

that those white men and women graced me

with precious titles such as

“trailblazer, educated ”

suddenly the harsh weight of my forefathers

with backs scarred from bitter resistance

and tounges split in half to prevent its revolutionary spread

and the nannies who entered hell

remembering that Jefferson

with his unbuckled trousers

sat upon my back lifted off

my clean mulatto shoulders

And into articles with talks of ‘scholarship’

An abroad trip

and graduate submissions

-all smiles for that good negro.

With a grimace

I will take these blood-soaked

pennies, dimes, dollars,

loans, stipends,

anything to fund the calculated violent ripping and digging

to discover

what you did ruthlessly, unending, for generations

so that when I finally became unaware

that my scholarship is another slave ship

Replacing everlasting physical dread

journeying closer to an academic plantation

where I caught tons of ‘sense’

clutching my whitey sealed documents

gratitude in my eyes

I can now walk forth with confidence

that we have overcome