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SUFFICIENT

By Dee Allen

PROMPT — The way I see it ...

The way I see it


That little symbol

Seen everywhere now

Copies a move from a chameleon


Doing its best

Imitation of a

Clear morning sky,


Doing its best

Imitation of still

Swimming pool water.


That little geometric shape--

Four sharp corners--

A cube the prettiest hue the sea can be


Signifies taking a stand

Against the rising tide

Wide and renewed


Against the people

Who have Semitic blood,

Against the tongue that's Hebrew--


I understand this hatred well:

The strong dislike

For who's different.


Our two peoples

Have endured

Slavery in the past.


Then we escaped and rebelled.

Those facts should

Make us natural allies.


Knowledge or ignorance of long-ago

Oppression encourages some to act

Like oppressors. Those unlike them are "lesser than."


Their hate speech the world over,

Their war moves on Gaza

Paints the bullseye on a whole people.


I am neither

Pro-Zionist nor

Pro-Israel.


Never mind state borders.

Never mind religious faith.

I am pro-you.


I knew you to be

Decent before you

Revealed your ethnicity. Therefore,


I support you.

As a woman.

As a writer.


I will stand

At your side

When scorn comes chasing you


And defend

Your humanity in battle

As I would for any friend.


The way I see it


I don't need no blue square

To show solidarity with you.

Just my ally-ship is sufficient.

 

Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on creative writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s, he is the author of 9 books — Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black (all from POOR Press), Elohi Unitsi (Conviction 2 Change Publishing), Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate (Vagabond Books), Plans (originally Nomadic Press, now re-issued from Black Lawrence Press ), Crimson Stain (EYEPUBLISHEWE), and his newest, Discovery (Southern Arizona Press) — plus has 75 anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far.

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