The new girl wore red velvet  ribbons
on mahogany braids
she tossed behind her shoulders.	
	My name is Gen-vi-ève.	
	My mother is from Louisiana and I am French.
Teacher said, 
	I will call you Jenny Veeve
	Up here we are American.
The girls giggled, boys slapped their thighs,
tongues pink behind missing incisors and canines.
Geneviève lowered her head, stared at the star 
carved into her desk before she was born.
	Jenny Veeve, Jenny Veeve, 
the boys teased in the hall and yelled on the playground.
I liked the fullness of Gen-vi-ève in my mouth.
I watched her take the lace trimmed, white handkerchief
from teacher's desk, her eyes dark slits, 
following teacher's back as she collected papers
from scared six year olds.
 


In her backyard Gen-vi-ève placed bits 
of string, seeds from a spice cabinet, words printed,
 in French, she said, into the rose scented square.. 
She spit into the mess, insisting  I do the same.
The ends tied, two round eyes, a nose and  mouth  
drawn with purple crayon, 
the whole sprinkled with cayenne,
we dug into soft black earth beneath 
the chinaberry tree,
laid the handkerchief to rest
Geneviève whispered, 
	My Creole Grandmêre taught me.

In September teacher brought a cane to school.
A touch of lumbago, she said.

Gwendoline Fortune is an author with three published books, a retired educator, a lifetime activist for civil rights of all kinds, and was interviewed recently by Jonathan Overby of the University of Wisconsin. Listen to that discussion at Higher Ground. She has also been a regularly wonderful and welcome contributor to ACR (see the XYZ Index), a personal friend of the Chairperson/Publisher, and President/Editor of A Country Rag, Inc. since October 2007.

---

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
"Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality."
"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
"And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'"
(I Have A Dream speech delivered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
from the Lincoln Memorial to over 200,000 civil rights supporters gathered on the lawn
around the reflecting pool on August 28, 1963)
-- Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 1/15/29–4/4/68
federal commemoration and holiday on January 15th of each year since 1983
by overwhelming U.S. Congressional vote
over the objection and veto-threat of then-President Ronald Reagan

---

Table of Contents -- Word Preserve