[white paper #28]

Martha Collins

could get a credit card loan car

come and go without a never had

to think about a school work job

to open doors to buy a rent a nice

place yard park beside a walk

in any store without a never had

to dress to buy a dress shoes under-

wear to understate or –play myself

to make myself heard to get across

a street a never mind point I never

had to earn the right to climb

my own if I should lose my key or

all I own my open door world was all

before me where to choose to and I

Alien, Part One

If you were Chinese, you had (mostly) been excluded since 1882.
If you were Japanese, things were complex after 1907–8.

If you were anything else, you were not excluded as such in 1916

although there were many who thought you should be
if you were the eastern or southern European
that you increasingly were: Russian / Polish
Jewish Italian Polish Slavic Greek . . .

—and you could have been excluded as a convict
lunatic beggar pauper polygamist anarchist

Martha Collins

2018

Race/Race

stock strain family line

breed blood skin shape

of the head of the pack

animal human judge

better fitter swiftly

to find foot horse car run

for your life around

town the block the camp

Martha Collins

2016

Poems

[white paper #28]

More by this poet

Again Later

Alien, Part One

Race/Race

Poems

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[white paper #28]

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