By Toni Asante Lightfoot

Upon Mary McLeod Bethune entering the White House, a white guard
addressed her as “auntie.” She stopped and asked him in her most earnest tone, “Which one of my brothers’ children are you?”

This friend from same southern nowheres
where I grew into laughter from the soil
of being ruint. She grew a college
from sweet potato pies. This gorgeous
dark cloud called ugly, dreaded bulldagger.
Yeah see she’s just like me.

Heard a negro man say
“She ain’t ugly. She just
don’t favor nobody.”
Well brother, I favor her
just fine. Want a whole world
of her lips, voice, the smile
that cracks hate off men blackened
hard toward the softest of us.

Wonder which hell trial built her.
Ain’t have to be the same pieces of satan
that turned on me but a brick from a house
is as hard to chew as a brick from a shack.

If I was back in church I’d sing
all kind of hallelujahs. Instead, I sit
in my Westchester living room looking
at Life. The broad backside of
Mary McLeod Bethune
walking through the front door
to parley with the Roosevelt
and First Lady Eleanor.

Think they hear
the contention behind
each pause, tremble, each
forced but necessary smile?