Bout For Jack & A West Indian Immigrant

by Lynne Thompson

The year Mother arrived on Ellis Island, the heavyweight fighter,

Jack Johnson, began serving a one-year sentence in Leavenworth

for violating the Mann Act, but everybody knew

Jack was doing time for loving a whole lot of white women,

and each and every one of them every which way.

Mother, fresh from hibiscus and the Caribbean Sea,

knew nothing of it; didn’t know that some who thought

if you’re light, well alright, would look at her and wonder

is she a white girl…?

I never asked about color when I could have; never thought of

the past as prologue because in the Civil Rights-free-sex-60s,

black was a beauty

and I didn’t want to think about the pale man who had

bedded my Grannie; that my own Mother was grey pearl,

chipped tooth, the other white meat…

* * * * *

"Bout For Jack & A West Indian Immigrant" was first published in African American Review, Vol. 47, No. 1 (2014)