The Real Estate Agent
by
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Presumably he was new, didn’t know
the exact addresses, didn’t know
how Magnolia meets Simpson by Grand.
Strange. He stopped
at each corner,
consulted that map.
He was a mystic
searching for water with paper diviner.
Goddamn him!
Why did I
realize
too late to say this to his face
he
was hiding something?
(But it wasn’t the prison
he was hiding, not the psychiatric hospital--
we
knew about these)
This man was hiding
an agenda, this man was steering
a
social wheel:
we
seemed too white
and
he was steering us
behind
around away
away
from people of color
(he
thought we wouldn’t like them)
toward
$ in his greasy little pocket.
Goddamn
the price
we still have to pay
for that marking map
that turned-back
attitude
that
wordless approval of hatred
this
outrage
burning
for him.
Van Zant has taught near-dropouts for 14 years and has written many other poems related to students in his alternative school--white, black and Hispanic (dysfunctionality knows no racial boundaries).
Copyright © 2000 Frank Van Zant. All rights reserved.
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