Racism in France 1

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Racism in France "But there's racism in France too." She said it almost tenderly, lifting the dessert, the glazed cherries gleaming on the pie, its maiden slice for me, the guest. I nodded, noncommittal, at the second piece, their blondish daughter reaching for it, quick, like almost nine years old, her father's eye a brake that could not hold; her mother's hand a lesson lost: in serving him, its careful demonstration was outmaneuvered in the nearest room by Jacqueline's favorite TV program, "Once Upon a Time," her anarchy kept low. "You must have noticed it." Her eyebrow-crinkle at the end censured the excuse-me swallow of Jacqueline, whose agile disappearance vaguely re-arranged the odds, the focus. "Perhaps," I replied, "but . . ." and I missed Jacqueline's facing me, the wild geometry of her knife and fork unquestioned, her cave habitable by common accord. And we live in rocks hollowed out, erodable, I thought, vulnerable when the wind is loaded with a nearby care half-heavy, like something in that motherly voice insistent as the cherry pit that stuck its bit of stone, suddenly, into the teeth of my answer: "Imagine Jacqueline." Their eyes, expecting rigors, made no adjustment, waited, friendly targets I had not wanted. "How would she feel," my arrow loosened in its sheaf, "if she saw you putting poison into her food?" Their hands flapped up as if to scatter flies their pursed lips patient. "Not real poison, not even real food, contd

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Poem written by Emanuel, told through a conversation concerning racism in France. (Page 1)

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  • type
    Image
  • created on
  • file format
    jpg
  • file size
    685 kB
  • container title
    James A. Emanuel Papers
  • creator
    James A. Emanuel
  • issue
    BOX 4 FOLDER 27, "The Chopping Block (Selected Poems), draft, 1988 (2 of 2)
  • rights
    James A. Emanuel Estate
  • rights holder
    James A. Emanuel Estate
  • version
    1982/1983