Ethnic Fusion

Grace halted there, blinking, taking in her newest marketing creation. The sign read, “Don’t stop now, we’re on our way!” and featured two toddlers with building blocks and wide smiles on their slightly olive skinned faces. She admired the interchangeable facial features, the soft roundness of both noses; only the little girl’s eyes slanted slightly more than the boy’s. Grace regained her momentum and noticed her own tan skin and similar features for a brief second in a slanted shop window and slowed her step for another glance. As she reached her front steps she stooped for the plastic wrapped Laudermiami Free Press. She was proud to live in the city named to commemorate the start of her movement even though Fort Lauderdale and Miami no longer existed as habitable places. Since the climate had fluctuated, she no longer minded the East Michigan weather and how appropriate to live in her great-great-great-grandmother, Edi’s city since she was the first pioneer of Ethnic Fusion. Grace kept a framed copy of the famed Detroit Free Press article on her bedside table, Edi’s extremely pale face smiling back at her under the caption, “No Race is a Good Race.”
Grace had studied the 1980s, she knew how radical Edi’s ideas had seemed, how extremist, contrived. Little did Edi know that one day Southern Florida would naturally meld and that the rest of the country would slowly follow with or without her plight or the persecution that followed. Grace had reached her apartment while she was reminiscing.










Year 2136

Nick's Kitty Poem

There once was a kitty
who hated puddles
But when he saw his mommy
he loved her cuddles
He loved them so much
he spent hours on her belly
This goofy little dude
is named Martelli

Rich enough

Do those who are rich enough bring a photographer
On their honeymoon? It is difficult to always
Take pictures of only one person or flag down an
Innocent 3rd party, makeshift photographer.

I guess most people who are rich enough
To bring them along get them for free – paparazzi.

Ugh

Masses uprooted
More fastidious than the previous

Back and Forth

She back paddles and avoids
His longing glance
Her intentions backlit like
An antique silhouette
And a back draft of self-consciousness
Stifles her wit
He has psoriasis and sunburn

Before the doorbell

Pork chops and pasta without sauce
Litter the dining room table
Once fine china, finely cracked
Like dry winter skin,
Holds canned peas, butter.
His bouncing knee rattles
Disarrayed silverware –
He never knows if knives are
Left or right – and he
Gulps down another glass
Of pale red wine.
Maybe he was mistaken,
Today is not the day or
She never really said yes.

Shelly

We were still waiting for the bus two hours later, and Shelly kept pinching my wrist.
"Do you really need something this time?"
She innocently nodded up at me and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
"You know what patience is, right?" Another nod, as innocent as the first, but this time she wouldn't look me in the eye.
"Shelly, your mom's not gonna be happy if I have to tell her that you were bad today." Her thumb popped out of her mouth and she pulled her spine a little straighter: at attention. I felt bad threatening her, but for Christsake, she kept derailing my train of thought. Really my worry was not that Shelly's mom might growl at me after hearing about her behavior. Shelly was a great kid. No, I was worried that I might never see Shelly again.

She often reminded me of a marionette; I'd pull her strings or her mother or Carl would play with them. I hated dictating her actions, but I hated her mother's control even more. I truly believed that without me, Shelly would have to deal with the torture, too. I knew it because sometimes at night I would wake up to the quiet whistling through her night-brace when she had crept down the hall for the safety of my bed. I don't think her mom ever entered her room at night; I always told Shelly to lock her door but I think Shelly feared that she might lock the good out of her life along with the bad.
I never had a lock on my door. Shelly's mom found out I put a chain-lock on my bedroom door once and the poor doorframe splintered from her angry crowbar. I was the next to deal with that crowbar's wrath and I immediately ran to Shelly's room to unscrew the chain I had placed there earlier that day before the crowbar found it, too. That was a long time ago; I don't think Shelly could even reach that chain, but for a few hours it made me feel a little calmer.
I think I was about Shelly's age when I quit calling her mom.