“So…what are you?” - Kristine Hadeed

[Larry Robinson]

“So…what are you?”
Lot’s of people ask when they first meet me.
“I mean, you got hair like sheepskin
eyes that could terrorize
skin like a supremacist
and a ghetto booty
sooo….what are you?”
And I tell them:
I am a breathing math equation

SUBTRACTION
I am the difference
between a cornered woman
and her right to consent
I am what is left
After forced penetration
into fertile motherland
I am sweet yams dug from their beds
and replanted in a foreign climate

MULTIPLICATION
I am the product
of variable factors
Algebraic solution
A substitution of cultures
I am teepee burned to the ground,
and log cabin built in its place

DIVISION
I am a mixed
number, a percentage
of a people, I am a fraction
of a stereotype
My blood is a canal
running between two cities
and I am the bridge
that few from either side
dare to cross

ADDITION
I am the sum of two positive integers
unshackled from a negative history
Their hands outstretched
from opposite sides of a chasm
split by burning crosses and swastikas
I am born from the embrace
of two horizontal bodies
who believe fear is the only problem
worth solving
You ask, what am I?
I am one plus one equals one

I am both sides of a full moon
A human equinox
The changing of seasons
My home is the quiet moment
between dusk and dawn–
the end of one day.
The beginning of the next.


	- Kristine Hadeed 

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