The McDonald’s, bright and beautiful,is a coloring book filled in bya comic book artist. Yellow doesn’tstay inside the lines of the GoldenArches. Yellow doesn’t spill outinto the real world like a water painting.Yellow obliterates line.Yellow transcends line.Yellow brings the world into the painting.
Stand in linewith your mother,restaurant strainingto be clean.Booths behind you,scattered,outside the lines,hard red plasticas comfortableas Catholic pews.
An old white couplesits amidst the furniture,dressed simply,no proclivity for color.His shirt was white. Pants khaki.Her blouse was white. Her anklelength dress, bland cardboard.Faces long as the summer day,hard as the h — No,hard as the red booths.
Hold your mother’s hand.Glance at them.Look away.Glance again.
Grip her hand tightly.Still, benched, theirbored, tired eyes boreinto you — eyes hotas apple pie filling. Years lateryou realize why they stare.Your light brownOliveBlackTanNon-whiteskin comes from a whiteWomb, in a word: blasphemy.
Photo by Jurij Kenda on Unsplash