Caribbean Black Isolated in White Suburbia

Caribbean black living
Isolated in white suburbia,
My white neighbor smiles
But not with her eyes

Hides so as not to speak; I accept
Why?

To be accepted,
To be liked
To be respected

To be liked?
Yet I am rejected,
Sincere smiles, conversations,
Emotive hand-waves saved for

Those who look
Like her; she is safe
Looking further a field
In white suburbia,
My neighborhood much of
The same

White on white smiling genuine
Together
While rosy cheeked babies
In dew-filled suburban sunlight walk by

But me — I am
Alone
With my black child

On the periphery
Of some silent club, clan
Cult, alienated, clothed in my blackness
In white suburbia
Looking for a better life, a brighter
Future for my family,
Growing cynical feeling weary,
Tired, depressed, repressed
Don’t want to explain
My dreadlocks,

My thick lips, multi-colored hair
Barrettes, afro-centric apparel,
Cobalt blue Volkswagen Passat
Just don’t
Want to explain

I understand you , try to
Understand me

Holding my pain
Told to ignore
Internalized age-old beliefs, as I cause
People to downcast their eyes
As I walk by, people who clutch handbags when in
Black male presence

Told to ignore ‘It’ when I see
‘It’ when I feel
‘It’

My African-American
Brothers and Sisters
Accustomed to,
Desensitized from

They already know
‘It’
Will never change

White friends sympathize
Try to empathize
Try to see my side
But unless they Feel ‘it’
They can not know
A Caribbean Black
Living isolated in white suburbia

My white neighbor smiles
But not
With her eyes