What Do You See In Her (Original 11 25 2009) Poem by Lee B. Mack

What do you see in her and what
Do you want -do you yearn for a
White girl –the rich ones that mama
Use to work for –the poor ones that
Shape up or the two in the park
On the bench -embraced
What is embedded in a black man’s
Eye that he should see –the panoply
Of colors of dresses they all wear
Against absence or take of coloring
Skins deep light and fair is there this
Woman hidden in the culture
Or is this one embedded in the eye
And how come mama was just as
Fair and blue eyed and swore to me
She believed herself to be just as black
As I -as Daddy who left to serve to die.
What do you see in her and what
Do you want –mama said the woman
Judged whether she is plebeian
or natural in cultured belief and in
Swearing -beholds the essence of me
That we are both colored fair inside
And mother of my true father’s eye.


Lee Mack copyright 2009. ISBN # 0615318347. Do not reproduce without permission.