Open Wide
While an
Asian woman
Works to hold
Onto the attention
Of the audience
At a poetry reading
The moderate
Looks frustrated
Only two minutes
For open mic
A great opera
Singer has
Recently
Died
The Asian
Woman
Belting
Out a song
In Italian
And then followed by
Two minutes of
Silence
The moderate
Rolls her eyes
Three hours
After the features
Have
Read their works
Time to
Close out
The evening
As quickly
As possible
Not as
Politically
Correct
Their eyes meet
For a brief moment
And they says to
Don’t fuck
With me
I am Vietnamese
And I have
Eaten bitches
Before
Speck of Brown
We have lived
In the richest of
Specks Neighborhoods
Of brown But are counted
In a sea Among the poorest
Of white
Cotton We are
Specks of
Brown
Since In a sea of
The early Cotton
20th century
My people Since the
Have serviced Election of
Your people Obama
As indenture We have
Servants Been spotted
For a change
We have cleaned
Your homes Words of
Victory
We have cared
For little Johnnie Headlines
In our local
We have fought Newspapers
Off your husbands
But what
But we Has changed
Have gone For specks of
Unnoticed Brown
Like the borrowers
We don’t ask for
Much
And need
Much less
To make
Our way
In your
Convoluted world
About the author:
Mel Brake is a Philadelphia based poet who has written about his experienced growing up in Philadelphia. Most of his current works have focused on aspects of the social and political. His works have been published in Philadelphia Poets, Mad Poets Review and Fox Chase Review. In addition to being published in Poetry Ink 20008 and other media outlets, he recently published his first CD/chapbook, Adoration of the Sol.
